Jack O'Connor Article

[Bord na Mona man]

In rugby, it's much easier to implement the protocol of the referee speaking to the captain, because the pitch is much smaller, there is an offside rule and so the players stay close together near the ball.

In the GAA, if the captain was the corner back or goalie, we'd waste a lot of time waiting for him to run up the field, every time the ref wanted to have a word.
What works in some sports mightn't work well in the GAA.

[tayto]

hmmm that's probably a fair point about the captain, still think a bin for someone who throws a cheeky dig would be an idea, you know they should get red but very often they only get yellow. a sin bin would be ideal for those sort of borderline cases, a bin for every shirt tug was way over the top. Just because we got it wrong dosent mean it couldnt work in GAA. You know when teams start all the niggly fouling as well, deliberate little stuff, a warning to the team captain wouldnt take too long, next man who fouls is getting ten, at the refs descretion. Good point about the rules in rugby, i haventa clue what half the penos are given for and i've been watching rugby for year and years.

[neilthemac]

the problem with the rules is that most PLAYERS and MANAGERS do not know the rules...

3 questions:

1 - when can a player pick the ball off the ground?
   (a) when it is rolling towards them
   (b) when it is rolling away from them
   (c) never

2 - when can a player play the ball away on the ground with his hands?
   (a) never
   (b) if he catches ball, lands on the ground still holding ball in hands
   (c) if ball is loose on the ground

3 - how far out does a kickout have to travel before a defender can touch the ball?
   (a) over the 21 line
   (b) 21m away from the kickout
   (c) 13m away from the kickout

most MANAGERS and PLAYERS need to be educated in the rules of the game. The refs know the rules.

[tayto]

those couldbe tightened up but none of them will ruin a game for a specator.

what can ruin a game is too many stupid fouls, it's the biggest problem football has in my opinion when a game decends into a sieries of frees, its awful to watch.

[DUBSFORSAM1]

Punching/Kicking/Kneeing - Red Card straight off
Off the ball jersey pulling, pulling and dragging and 3rd man tackles - yellow card and sin bin for 15 mins...
Deliberate dragging players to ground by either grabbing legs or blatantly pulling jerseys - yellow card and sin bin for 15 mins...
Blocking quick free kicks, sidelines etc......sin bin for 15 mins....

Allow shoulders and more contact in contests for the ball....
Allow non shooting frees to be taken from close to the foul to avoid deliberate blocking of them
Allow the advantage more...

Insist umpires warn refs about players being fouled off the ball and take action....

[thejuice]

neilthemac

I would agree with you too, players also have to look at themselves and their application of the rules. It does at times seem that some players arent aware of the rules especially when making contact with their opponent. The ones you mention are pretty obvious but i wonder do some players know the rules as well as the ref?

[darbyo]

I think players also have to take some responsibility, in what other field sport do forwards get out in front of their man win the ball and when the defender puts an arm in to effect a tackle it's grabbed by the forward who pulls the defender down on top of himself to win the free. This must be coached to players as some players literally make a career out of it and I don't think I've ever seen the defender win the free in this instance.

[SuperDooperCooper]

Irish Times Wed 02/05/07:
Value of sun trips seen when crisis arises
Jack O'Connor's column: Jack O'Connor on how managers try to keep players focused and build that never-say-die team spirit.
Nature abhors a vacuum. So do managers. The leagues are over. The championships are a while away. This is a very difficult period for a manager. Right now some teams are building to a championship and have had no match for five or six weeks.
Having no matches is tougher than having a run of games. Players go back to their clubs. They are away playing club matches, dipping in and out of the county team. It's difficult.
Players lose a little edge when they go home. The club stuff is necessary but it's a different focus. With a county team you try to create a professional environment. Clubs are a little bit more laid back. It's hard to turn a player's mentality up a notch when he comes back.
Keeping minds focused without games is difficult. You try it all. Bonding exercises. Weekends away. Training camps in the sun. All designed to get that "never-say-die" spirit that you want. You don't know if it's there until you hit a crisis.
Sometimes you see the arse fall out of a team during a season. You see teams beaten in the qualifiers by teams they should never lose to. Somewhere along the line they just gave up. There is nothing worse for a manager. He might as well get on his horse and ride away.
Atmosphere and team spirit are crucial but it's tricky chemistry. Everyone has to enjoy each other's company because they spend so much time together. You need a sense of fun, and a few jokers in the camp are no bad thing provided they know when to knuckle down.
The game is changing. The advent of the 30-man panel makes it virtually impossible for a manager to keep everyone's morale high. You have one team on the pitch and another in the dugout. Somebody is going to be unhappy. There aren't enough games to do the rotation stuff or act the t**ker man (as Claudio Ranieri was known at Chelsea because of his fiddling with the team) but you have some chance if you reward form.
Sometimes you have to shake it up. We did that once a year in Kerry. In 2004 Paddy Kelly debuted in midfield in an All-Ireland quarter-final against Dublin. In 2005 we put Bryan Sheehan into the team for his championship debut in an All-Ireland semi-final. Last summer Paul O'Connor had a championship debut in a Munster final in Killarney. Each time the impact on morale in training was huge.
The weeks in the sun that teams take now will only work if they are well planned and well structured with good variety. Otherwise teams are just following a trend. There are risks. Fellas live in each other's faces for a week. That needs proper handling. You have to let them leave off steam in the middle of the week. That can have its own side-effects.
You do three sessions a day and hopefully players won't have the teaspach to be up to much outside that. Being a professional for a week can have a huge effect on mentality when players come back again. A huge part of professional training is rest and sleep.
There is the danger that training weeks become a chore for teams when the novelty wears off so you go to different environments. In 2004 we went to La Santa in Lanzarote. Last year to Browns Sportsclub in the Algarve. In 2005 we didn't go anywhere. We didn't win the All-Ireland either! I don't know! You hope for a benefit. Team spirit isn't tested until things go wrong. It's when the flak starts flying that people need to stick together.
The watershed for us last year was the Munster final defeat. We met in a hotel afterwards. I had no idea what the outcome would be. That afternoon we found out who the real leaders were.
There is a point in every season when a manager learns if he has the faith of his squad. Some teams just quit. That day in Cork was our rubicon.
I spoke to John O'Mahony late last year and he said he had the same experience with Galway in 2001. They lost a Connacht final and John gave them a week off. He said that only those who were interested need turn up after that. High risk but it worked.
If there is friction it will be magnified in a crisis. Adversity isn't a problem, it's how you handle it. Obstacle or a stepping-stone. Look at Tyrone in 2005. There were times when they were tested to the limit. Defeat to Armagh. Peter Canavan and Stephen O'Neill's red cards along the way. They stuck together to win a fantastic All-Ireland.
That was the result of more than a week in the sun but the sun trip is something everyone sees and copies. In the race to find an edge it has become almost compulsory.
'And another thing . . . '
I saw Jose Mourinho last week talking about Didier Drogba before the Liverpool game. Drogba was on one yellow card and Mourinho was saying that the Liverpool players would be chasing the referee around the place in order to get Drogba booked.
Pure cynicism.
This sort of stuff has been going on with Mourinho and the boys for a while. It's wrong. It's one thing for a manager to have a go at a referee after a game but before a game it is calculated to create pressure.
We haven't got that far in the GAA yet. Anyone can leave a few oaths at a referee after a game when tensions are high, but it's different in the cold light of day. In Kerry last year we felt that our old friend Billy Morgan ratcheted up the pressure any time we played when he cast aspersions on our particular style of play. It got under our skins which was probably part of the intention. Possibly the words were designed to raise referees' antennas. Maybe Billy did believe it.
Generally GAA managers handle themselves well in victory and defeat. There is an onus on us all to keep that part of the game. If we start showing disrespect to referees and opposition the whole system will break down. Rugby has got it right.
Players are brought up to respect the referee. Only the captain can question his decisions.
Thousands of kids watch us every week and they are picking up messages that apply not just to sport but to life itself. There is still some spirit of sportsmanship in the GAA and respect between GAA managers. Only we realise the pressures of our job. Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown etc. We understand each other, and you'd forgive a fella anything he says in those moments after a game when the blood is pounding.
I'd hate to see that change, We all want an edge but it's the stuff beforehand we have to watch. There'll always be managers who'll play the media like a violin but at the end of the day it's about honesty between us and then getting it right on the pitch

[AbbeySider]

Irish Times 09-05-2007

Underage set-up needs to be streamlined

Former Kerry manager Jack O'Connor looks at player burn-out

The Under-21 football championship finished at the weekend. It is a much maligned grade of activity, and in recent years there has been a lot of easy talk about getting rid of it.

But disbanding the competition would be a serious mistake. It is hugely important in the development of players. I was involved in some shape or form at Under-21 level in Kerry from 1993 to 1999 and again in 2002 and 2003.

Sure, once in a blue moon we see players go straight from a minor team into a senior team. There are exceptions, in every generation you'll find one. Johnny Culloty won a senior All-Ireland back in 1959, in his first year out of minor. Jimmy Barry Murphy was 19 in 1973 when he won with Cork. The Gooch went straight into the senior Kerry side at 19 and won an All Star.

Geniuses like those guys don't come along too often. Even a genuinely great midfielder like Darragh Ó Sé needed two successful campaigns to develop properly. He won Under-21 medals in 1995 and 1996, but it was 1997 before Darragh was truly ready for the big boys.

The grade gives huge value. One of the main reasons Kerry have won four senior All-Ireland championships in the last 10 years is the success at Under-21 level from 1995 to 1999. During that period we won five consecutive Munster championships and three All-Irelands. That meant a stream of confident young players coming through. The same with Cork in the late 1980s. They reached four All-Ireland senior finals in a row and won the last two. They were backboned by three successful All-Ireland Under-21 teams.

What is worrying in Kerry now is the lack of success at the level. We haven't won a match in two years. We haven't got out of Munster since 2002. Cork have won four in a row in Munster and now an All-Ireland. This will manifest itself at senior level. On Saturday Cork had four or five players who look senior material. That's how it should be done.

Putting young players in too early can be detrimental. Look at Donie Brennan in Laois. A county senior two years ago but not on the panel now. He's a fine young player who should make it if he bulks up. He was too light for senior football at the time.

There are gradual stages to reaching senior football status. Under-14. Under-16. Minor. Under-21. Progress is meant to be gradual and planned.

Ask an 18-year-old to jump straight into a senior scene with physically mature 25-year-old is usually unrealistic and potentially dangerous.

Irish rugby has successfully planned the physical development of players from an early age. The game has a cohesive national development programme supervised by Dr Liam Hennessy. The physical preparation in underage academies has been nationally streamlined to ensure that young players achieve the maximum benefit from training programmes. We can learn from this.

Contrast rugby with GAA's unco-ordinated approach where every Tom, Dick and Harry does his own thing. Some are doing laps, more are doing this, that and the other. Players do too much of the wrong things.

Training regimes at minor, Under-21 or senior in a county sometimes bear no resemblance to each other and don't even complement each other.

For instance, strength training, especially weights, should be progressive from Under-16 on. Learning the technique at an early stage lessens the risks of injury and increases the strength gains later on. For us in Kerry the importance of weights in physical preparation for the last few years was paramount.

Our trainer, Pat Flanagan, put more emphasis on this than any other form of fitness work. Pat would see running and laps as being counter-productive to high-intensity performance on the pitch.

The bottom line is that the problem isn't with the Under-21 grade. It's with cohesion and planning. County boards need to appoint one development officer with sole responsibility for implementation of a co-ordinated physical programme at all age levels. This would end the disjointed approach and the à la carte attitude that exists among managers and trainers at the moment.

Generally, everyone in the GAA looks for short-term gain. A proper development officer would rule that, in the long term, it is important that the players play with their age group and go back to the seniors when they are ready.

It is important in the development of any county down the line that the Under-21s get fair play. Ideally the competition should be played off in the autumn. In spring, fellas train with colleges, are off to county Under-21 managers and maybe four or five are in with the seniors. They are being pulled in all directions. Wrong.

And Another Thing . . .

Speaking of young players, burn-out is a related issue. A player welfare committee is reviewing the demands placed on players in the modern era.

A variety of things which, when combined, can lead to player burn-out.

Too many games, not enough of the proper type of training and poor recovery periods.

There are psychological reasons, too, like unrealistic pressure to win even from a young age. Nowadays Gaelic football at senior level takes over a player's life completely. This isn't sustainable or advisable in the long term, and could well explain why intercounty careers which extend beyond the age of 30 are now the exception.

Professional demands are placed on amateurs and the inevitable result is burn-out. Last year Declan O'Sullivan certainly suffered. Declan had played to nearly the end of December for three years in a row. Each time he was playing again in January. In hindsight, it was my fault. The manager should supervise things like that. Sometimes you leave your heart rule your head though. If the player is enthusiastic, you let him at it. The player suffers later on.

In soccer, Alex Ferguson will occasionally send off one of his stars to Dubai or somewhere for a week. That's not for the crack. It's for scientific reasons. They need to psychologically chill out for a while. I've seen young players who should progress stall because they have played too much underage. They haven't the time to train properly. Playing matches and not training, the body weakens. You don't deposit. You withdraw all the time. That catches up.

Look again at rugby. How few matches they play. They have a long pre-season of eight or 10 weeks. We have too many games and not enough time to recover or train. We need a good pre-season with no matches. Do the stamina work and then a maintenance programme during the season.

In college football they are doing heavy-metal work on heavy pitches and still trying to play matches in late winter or early spring. Lads are trying to do a bit of study on the side. There is no proper structure for the season.

We need real leadership. County development officers need to pinpoint who the stars of the future are. Take it out of a player's hands. Protect them. Say no for them.

Young fellas want to play. They are mad for the road. It's not in their best interest though. They need a structure, proper advice on lifestyle and diet and weights from an early age. Treat them as elite athletes.

That's a quantum leap, but if we want to flourish that's the way we have to go. At this point players are coming through despite the system, not because of it.

[tayto]

Excellent piece. Shows John Allen twittering on about what music should be played seem all the more pointless. Write about huling John FFS! 

[Mike Sheehy]

Irish rugby has successfully planned the physical development of players from an early age. The game has a cohesive national development programme supervised by Dr Liam Hennessy. The physical preparation in underage academies has been nationally streamlined to ensure that young players achieve the maximum benefit from training programmes. We can learn from this.

I'll have to disagree with Jack on this..was reading recently about Irelands underage defeat to South Africa and the articles bemoaning the lack of physical bulk in the Irish team. it was men against boys apparently. They are blaming the schools rughy system.

To be honest though, its probably not right to have young lads spending their youth in gyms pumping weights with all the added temptations of steroiids etc

[AbbeySider]

To be honest though, its probably not right to have young lads spending their youth in gyms pumping weights with all the added temptations of steroiids etc

I cant believe you just said that...

You obviously have never been to a gym regularly with that kind of statement. I go to the gym three nights a week over the winter and twice a week now and I have NEVER had the temptation or even heard of ANYONE that has had an inkling to take any kind of steroids.

Its better that the 'youth' you describe are in the gym or on a playing field. Either that or they are on the street or in the pub.

Also can you elaborate on that 'etc' ?
What other temptations are in the gym ?

[Bainisteoir]

Agree with Mid Louth completely....just out of curiosity what are your ideas?

[Mike Sheehy]

Also can you elaborate on that 'etc' ?
What other temptations are in the gym ?

...as in other types of performance enhancing drugs....perhaps YOU would like to elaborate on what you thought I was referring to...it might reveal why you really go to the gym 3 nights a week.

[Mike Sheehy]

The is a load of BS, the embarrassing thing for the GAA is that the Gaelic players aren't hard to spot in the gym because they have not got a notion of their way around. They don't know the basics of gym training, though plenty of managers will insist on a few gym sessions at the start of the year to kick things off.

I am not talking about knowing your way around a gym. I'm asking what is a healthy amount of preparation to expect, or even allow, 15year olds to undertake to compete in an amateur sport. Jack thinks it can be controlled, I have my doubts. Maybe living in the states and talking with friends of mine who teach in high schools here has given me a jaudiced view on this issue but if it can happen here it can happen in Ireland.