Sport

Paddy Heaney: Consistency is key ... just look at Conor Glass

No hard feelings: A few years after a less than successful coaching session, Hawthorn recruit Conor Glass shows he holds no grudges towards his former Under 16 coach.
No hard feelings: A few years after a less than successful coaching session, Hawthorn recruit Conor Glass shows he holds no grudges towards his former Under 16 coach. No hard feelings: A few years after a less than successful coaching session, Hawthorn recruit Conor Glass shows he holds no grudges towards his former Under 16 coach.

I USED to coach Conor Glass.

Okay, to be more accurate, I coached Conor Glass when he played for the Glen Under-16s.

While coaching Conor, I also managed to conduct one of the most shameful training sessions in the history of the Gaelic Athletic Association.

We were preparing for the county final. Team manager Stephen Murtagh was working on kick-outs. But we had a problem.

The young lad marking Conor was getting seriously disheartened – understandably.

Every time the ball went into the air, Conor was catching it near the moon.

It reached the point where Conor’s opponent just dropped the head and stopped competing.

An intervention was required. I was never the greatest footballer in the world. But as a midfielder, I had one talent. I was good at stopping a good footballer.

So I entered the fray. My goal was to show the boy marking Conor how to stop a star. With hindsight, I suppose you shouldn’t coach dark, nasty, underhand tricks to children. But, it was a county final. And like Malcolm X said: “By any means necessary.”

The lesson went a bit like this: 'You’re going to stand in front of Conor and not allow him a run up. You’re going to keep backing into him and torment the life out of him. If necessary, you’ll hold his jersey. If necessary, you’ll stand on his toes. In short, by any means necessary.'

I physically demonstrated all these tips so the lad knew exactly what to do.

Then I asked for the ball to be kicked out. I wanted to provide a demonstration.

The goalie kicked the ball out. It was perfect.

Right above myself and Conor. I backed into Conor and did all the manoeuvres.

As the ball dropped invitingly into the catching zone, I thought I might actually take this.

Then I momentarily lost contact with Conor.

The soon-to-be AFL recruit took a short step backwards and launched himself.

Ground Control to Major Tom.

I think I felt the whoosh of air as his knees flew past the back of my neck.

Then I heard the sound all midfielders dread, the soft ‘pat’ of the ball nestling safely in someone else’s finger tips.?

When Conor landed, I piled on top of him. It was just instinct. A pure reflex.

But here’s the thing. I was 39-years-old. Conor was 16.

As I lay on top of Conor, the thought struck me: ‘I’ve just physically assaulted a juvenile’. This was followed by the realisation that my coaching lesson had not been a great success.

In the background I could hear sniggers of laughter from the management team.

It was bad. I tried to salvage the unsalvageable.

Bouncing to my feet, I stood up as if everything had gone perfectly to plan and roared at the young lad who had been marking Conor:

“And if those things I showed you don’t work, just foul him,” Then I marched off the pitch as quickly as I could.

As a professional athlete, Conor Glass is a genetic freak.

That’s what professional football clubs actively search for.

Whether it’s Aussie Rules or American Football, nearly all professional clubs measure the standing vertical leap.

Your standing vertical leap is governed largely by genetics. It’s in your DNA.

Your mammy and daddy basically dictate how high you can jump from a standing position.

It’s not something you can train. While you can improve, you’ll never transform.

It’s like sprinting and punching. Once a knock-out puncher always a knock-out puncher. You can’t become a knock-out puncher.

As I learned that day in Watty Graham Park, Conor Glass has an incredible vertical leap.

But I would contend that’s not the sole reason Conor was recruited by Hawthorn.

Even though I coached Conor for two years, I never got to know him very well.

I rarely had a conversation with him.

Why? There was never any need to speak to him.

When Conor trained, he gave 100 per cent. And even though he was doing his GCSEs, he never missed a training session.

Never.

It was the same for games. No pep talks were ever required. He always gave everything. At 16, he was the model professional.

Nowadays, it’s no coincidence that professional football clubs don’t just conduct physical tests.

The recruiting process also involves psychological assessments and personality tests.

If you’re going to take a teenager halfway around the world, extracting him from everyone and everything he knows, the boy needs to have the mental strength of a man.

As the legendary American NFL coach Bill Belichick said: “Talent sets the floor. Character sets the ceiling.”

In many cases, the most talented individuals, the genetic freaks, never make it to the top. Just look at all the outstanding underage talents who never play senior football.

Why does it happen? Because they don’t apply themselves.

They don’t train consistently. They don’t do the work.

The American coach Dan John put it brilliantly when he said: “Most champions are built by?punch-the-clock workouts?rather than extraordinary efforts.”

My creed in the gym pre-lockdown was ‘Unrelenting Consistency’.

Of course, my new creed is ‘10 in the morning, 10 in the evening.’ (I think I’ll get that put on a wall).

Because everywhere I look, whether it’s a professional footballer like Conor Glass or a pensioner doing 10 chin-ups there is one quality which unites them all.

Unrelenting Consistency.