Sport

Players need to make the right decisions, just as Michael Murphy so often did

Michael Murphy has retired, acclaimed as Donegal's greatest ever players. Pic Seamus Loughran.
Michael Murphy has retired, acclaimed as Donegal's greatest ever players. Pic Seamus Loughran. Michael Murphy has retired, acclaimed as Donegal's greatest ever players. Pic Seamus Loughran.

Like most GAA fans, I have watched the RTE documentary this week dubbed 'Quinn Country'.

I met Sean Quinn a number of years ago in the Slieve Russell Hotel in Cavan when annually the Ulster GAA were facilitated by Quinn's sponsorship of the event.

Sean Quinn was a great supporter of the GAA and indeed many GAA fans as well as club and inter-county players owe him a great deal via their respective employment.

I understand that we all have a different narrative, in many ways shaped by our life experiences to date, whether that is in our sport, in our home life, or in our employment.

Nothing is ever black and white; in that type of thinking we can leave ourselves with a very narrow perspective on certain subjects.

Life is full of grey areas.

Sean Quinn was a very successful man, extremely successful, who happened to make one poor business decision relating to Contracts For Difference (CFDs).

The psychology of poor decision-making in business and sport are relatable siblings of one another.

They are intrinsically linked.

In business, a bad decision can cost you a lot of revenue.

Similarly, in sport, at the top end, it can also cost you in terms of revenue.

In Golf, one putt can leave you well off the pace at the top of a leader board.

On a sliding scale in terms of prize winnings, it can be hundreds of thousands of pounds.

The same can be said in team sport at professional level.

Perhaps not as relevant to the GAA in monetary terms, but we have a habit of taking it as seriously as the professional game.

How many times on the Gaelic Football field, when the pressure comes on, have we made decisions, that in retrospect we look at now and question our logic of thinking?

If you have not, then I'm afraid, you are unlikely to facilitate personal growth.

I have read enough books on psychology and sporting performance to understand the various nuances of better decision making.

Indeed in a time were most club and inter-county teams are leaving no stone unturned in preparing teams, with back-room teams nearing twenty people of varying skills, winning and losing is increasingly focusing on better individual and team decision making.

This has always been the case in reality, there is nothing new here!

However, the best teams are currently focusing much more in-depth on the mental aspects and preparation, as well as the historically important physical preparation side of the game.

Very simply this manifests itself in Gaelic football more now than ever before.

Possession is nine-tenths of the law – you will hear it across all the fields in the country, 'keep ball', 'don't force it'.

There is increasingly a reluctance to test our decision making in pressure situations, instead opting to take the safer option and laterally pass the ball, or indeed pass it backwards to an unmarked colleague.

Our players are happy to 'pass the buck' to someone else.

This is out of fear.

I always tell my players to play with abandonment – do not be afraid to go and make something happen, as long as they don't mess it up (this is PG-rated for obvious reasons).

I understand this is a contradictory statement as on the occasion when possession is given up for trying the very thing encouragement is offered for, a loud roar in anger toward them could be the consequence.

Managers and coaches are like most humans – fallible!

Managers and coaches are never happy – this is what all players also need to learn; even if they appear to be, they never are.

I jest, but 'flair' players need to be encouraged to be just that.

Players like Shane Walsh and Diarmuid Connolly (in his pomp) need the licence to be the players their ability and skill reflect.

Like most humans, they also make mistakes, however by and large you have to be able to accept this as a consequence of being so talented.

You cannot and should not treat players all the same despite a train of thought dictating otherwise.

In a proper well-rounded team – there is a role for everyone.

So, it would be remiss of me not to acknowledge, someone equal to and better perhaps than the latter two individuals I named in this column - Michael Murphy - who recently retired as Donegal's greatest ever player.

The use of the very word 'great' is bandied about nowadays to recognise any Tom, Dick or Harry who pulled on a county jersey – however the same could not be said of Murphy.

Murphy was a force of nature.

A generational talent.

A man who, single-handedly, took Donegal from an underachieving county to being a force within 10 years (2011-2021).

He doubled their Ulster title Roll of Honour tally and number of All-Irelands.

All within a 13-year career.

In context, Donegal took more than 100 years, since the inception of the GAA, to get what they did up until the point Murphy put on the green and gold jersey.

Rarely did I see him make bad decisions on the field.

If he did, he certainly was not afraid to make them either – he was the first and last off the battlefield.

Jim McGuinness owes him a lot to – without Murphy, his talent, his leadership, McGuinness would never have been able to do what he did either.

I would take an educated bet, that in his field, with McGuinness plying his trade in professional soccer, it would have been unlikely that he had ever saw, or been inspired by, nor worked with, an equivalent to Michael Murphy.

In many ways, they were perfect for one another.

I have no doubt that Michael will play a large part in future Donegal success but this will not be today or tomorrow.

For now, my best advice to Murphy is to get cracking on a new generation of Michael Murphys who can elevate his club Glenswilly and Donegal to those heights he once did.

(Of course, I hope I am not putting any undue pressure on Michael and his partner, Annie Keeny).

As humble as he was great, Murphy has the richest reputation of any man in Donegal and Ireland – and knowing him – that is good enough.