gaaboard.com

GAA Discussion => GAA Discussion => Topic started by: darbyo on November 13, 2006, 06:34:06 PM

Title: Footballing lesson from the Aussies
Post by: darbyo on November 13, 2006, 06:34:06 PM
Now that things have died down a bit anybody else feel that the Aussies underlined how ordinary we are at our national game.Like the English soccer public we often talk big about our footballers, unlike the English we don't have a World Cup to show us poorly we play the game we invented. Futher evidence  can be taken from the weekend just past when talented well prepared club teams from around the country failed to get more than 5 scores in 60 minutes of football   
Title: Re: Footballing lesson from the Aussies
Post by: Gnevin on November 13, 2006, 07:03:44 PM
Every year since about 2002 which it may just be a coincidence that armagh won that year we've be told about  how x part of the game is dying. This year alone ....

We where told that the goal is dieing out yet kerry and mayo go out and score 7 in a ai final
Dublin and Mayo score 3 in the semi final
Kerry and Armagh score 4 in the quarter final.

We where all told the game of the long ball is dead then Kerry find a 6 foot + target man and its long balls all over the place

We where all told the high ball and fielding in the middle of the park was gone dead finished never to seen again , yet Whelan and Ryan , O Se and  Moynihan and other proceed to pull high ball out of the air like their was glue on their gloves .

Just because we cant play a mongrel game doesn't mean our own game is in trouble .

Title: Re: Footballing lesson from the Aussies
Post by: bridgegael on November 13, 2006, 07:15:39 PM
international rules s not a game off skill.  too suggest otherwise is crazy.  if the austrailians were to play against us in a gaelic match there would be no contest,  their whole ethos is their tackle.
Title: Re: Footballing lesson from the Aussies
Post by: darbyo on November 13, 2006, 07:22:36 PM
Nor do a few few stats prove it is not. I'm not suggesting that the game has gone down in standard in recent years I'm saying that maybe we have never got close to realizing how good the game could be. The All-Ireland like you say produced 7 goals but it was a brutal game and hardly evidence of a generally positive approach to attacking football.Yesterday 3 county champions managed to score 7 points between them in the club championship. The season just past produced Derry/Tyrone and Cork/Limerick low scoring mistake riddled games. I'm not criticizing anyone what I'm saying is I feel there should be a serious overhaul of our coaching structures to try to produce more rounded footballers comfortable in all the basic aspects of the game.
Title: Re: Footballing lesson from the Aussies
Post by: darbyo on November 13, 2006, 07:35:00 PM
Mike will respond to you on this tread to keep all relevant points on the one page. I agree and disagree with on both your points Mike but I think your forgetting and this is the crux of my arguement, we see the exact same mistakes on the football fields of the country year in year out.Balls dropped into keepers arms,woefully misdirected passes,indesisive slow build ups,poor handling,and poor finishing when point/ goal opportunities arise. Forget about the Aussies they just show us that we should expect more from ourselves.I know their professional athletes but a guy raised playing a game and reaching the very top should surely still look a bit more accomplished than a pro. who is playing the game for only a few weeks
Title: Re: Footballing lesson from the Aussies
Post by: Rufus T Firefly on November 13, 2006, 09:36:36 PM
Quote from: darbyo on November 13, 2006, 06:34:06 PM
Now that things have died down a bit anybody else feel that the Aussies underlined how ordinary we are at our national game.Like the English soccer public we often talk big about our footballers, unlike the English we don't have a World Cup to show us poorly we play the game we invented. Futher evidence  can be taken from the weekend just past when talented well prepared club teams from around the country failed to get more than 5 scores in 60 minutes of football   

Regarding your opening question, my answer is no. Many people for some reason view The International Rules/Compromise Rules as being closer to Gaelic than to Aussie Rules - the round ball is highlighted as the reason. In my opinion the tackle far outweighs the round ball argument and renders the notion, that last week's game is comparable to Gaelic, as obsolete.

It follows therefore that nothing about the skills of our players can be read into last week's fiasco.
Title: Re: Footballing lesson from the Aussies
Post by: Pangurban on November 13, 2006, 09:49:58 PM
Agree with your general points Darbyo, but your suggested solution is actually part of the problem, we need less of this so called coaching, not more. Listen to the mantras of todays coaches, get behind the ball, play tight dont give the ball away, dont shoot under pressure...a good summation of all this nonsense would be dont take responsibility, dont kick the ball if there is another option,play negatively.  The basic skills of gaelic football are not being taught or practised. When a team like Mayobridge records 1 point in a game,and other Co. Champions are faring little better, then there is something seriously wrong. I am pointing the finger firmly at the modern coaches and tacticians, if someone has another theory im willing to listen.
Title: Re: Footballing lesson from the Aussies
Post by: youbetterbelieveit on November 13, 2006, 11:02:35 PM
i agree with pangurban, the game as it is played today, is a pale shadow of previous years, the open flowing football is been restricted by negative tactics and coaching in the modern era.
Title: Re: Footballing lesson from the Aussies
Post by: Bogball XV on November 13, 2006, 11:06:19 PM
Lads, theres been a massive over reaction to this beating, do none of you remember 2004, we absoultely hammered them - i was there with some Aussies and they were embarrassed by the display.  We have handed out plenty of good beatings so getting a few isn't something we shoudl be getting too worried about just yet.  It should also be borne in mind that a sub standard irish team was picked, I dunno what Boylan's thinking was, but it was seriously flawed as were the tactics.
Title: Re: Footballing lesson from the Aussies
Post by: DuperDee on November 13, 2006, 11:20:51 PM
I don't want t get involved in the ongoing rights and wrongs of last Sundays game. I was very annoyed by some of the behaviour and the fact that the referees did not deal with it. To see it live there was so much not caught on TV.

But my main point is that modern Gaelic football is not suited by the rules at present. We should not criticise our current game just because of last Sunday

Kicking the ball is a skill - the absence of has been heavily criticised. But in football there is no benefit in kicking to the man as he will be closely marked. Most teams are coached to kick to the space and there is great movement in the forward line. We have moved away from the big static full forward. Kerry's Donaghy has great movement as well as height.

One area that has developed over the past few years is tackling skills - this is true for all teams not just those from Ulster. The Compromise rules does not allow the defender to tackle once the Mark has been called. In football if the defender cannot punch the ball away or win it clean the option is to tackle - Delay, and Deny Space  - as told by the coaching gurus -

We should recognise how our game has developed over the past few years and accept that it is a different game than 10 years ago - this does not mean that it is any worse for that developemnt

Title: Re: Footballing lesson from the Aussies
Post by: armaghniac on November 13, 2006, 11:34:34 PM
The point is that we don't need to look to the Aussies for comparisions, some Gaelic football teams do score goals, use foot passes etc, Kerry are a good example. I attended the Crossmaglen  Rangers Mullahoran game and Rangers have not forgotten the use of the foot pass. The answer lies within the GAA as much as with the Aussies.

Title: Re: Footballing lesson from the Aussies
Post by: dubnut on November 14, 2006, 09:24:45 AM
A poor International rules showing isnt a refelction of the standard of Gaelic football as its a different sport.
Too much though is given to this query, I havent heard many people question if maybe its due to the levels of professionalism improving in Australia.
Either way, I have seen enough this year to convince me Gaelic football is in a healthy state.
Whether we can compete with full time professionals is irrelevant as it doesnt apply in our sport.
Title: Re: Footballing lesson from the Aussies
Post by: Fuzzman on November 14, 2006, 09:46:57 AM
Usually one team copies the winning formula of another team and so our game changes.

Armagh used the extra defender/sweeper in 2002 and played with a two man full forward line.

Tyrone used this and built on it by creating the swarm defense from every section of the field. They also used the hand pass much more than armagh as winning clean ball in midfield has always been a problem for Tyrone.

Teams saw this was effective and copied it but this lead to matches which are much more negative and defensive now with low scores and a lot more scrappy niggly games.

I think that's why people were glad to see the whole Kieran Donaghy style coming back in and the excitement it brings. I can see managers move away again from defensive play, at least I hope so for Tyrone.
Title: Re: Footballing lesson from the Aussies
Post by: tayto on November 14, 2006, 10:33:41 AM
Quote from: dubnut on November 14, 2006, 09:24:45 AM
A poor International rules showing isnt a refelction of the standard of Gaelic football as its a different sport.
Too much though is given to this query, I havent heard many people question if maybe its due to the levels of professionalism improving in Australia.
Either way, I have seen enough this year to convince me Gaelic football is in a healthy state.
Whether we can compete with full time professionals is irrelevant as it doesnt apply in our sport.

Spot on. Our lads were also clearly rattled by the violence that mared the first 15 minutes. You had intercounty players unable to kick a simple pass.
Title: Re: Footballing lesson from the Aussies
Post by: No1 on November 14, 2006, 10:58:45 AM
  Just a reply to the original subject.  Barry Hall gave an exhibition of high fielding and excellent score taking in the second test.  He was absolutely fantastic.  You couldn't help compare him to our lads, and he was head and shoulders above them all - football wise.
Title: Re: Footballing lesson from the Aussies
Post by: dubnut on November 14, 2006, 11:17:35 AM
No1, in Gaelic football he would have been red carded in the first few minutes.
Yeah he fielded and kicked well, but thats not much use in our game if you arent on the field.
If a team went out in next years championship and did what the Aussies did in the first ten minutes and DIDNT have men sent off I am sure the opposition would be as rattled as our lads were. Fortunately our rules protect against this.
Lets not put all this down to lack of skill and suggest the start didnt affect the Irish players, it clearly did.
Lets let this topic go anyway, its been done to death.
Title: Re: Footballing lesson from the Aussies
Post by: cavanmaniac on November 14, 2006, 11:27:48 AM
I think there's a certain case to be made about a decline in some areas of gaelic football.

Our kicking skills are always shown up in international rules games because what's a good pass in gaelic - dropping it in front of the forward to bounce into his hands - is criminal in International Rules as you're stting a guy up to get creamed. I accept our lads are not used to delivering this pass because they simply don't need to or advised not to use it at home but you would think with their round ball skills they'd adapt quicker to it than the Aussies who had absolutely no trouble popping passes onto each others chests from a variety of distances. Gaelic football passing is easier, but when asked to step up to the pressure of accurately landing the ball direct into a guy's arms, we're sorely lacking. I know this doesn't really matter for our own game but I still think it's sad to see that guys trained so hard cannot execute this basic skill, under pressure from a marker or not. The over dependence on the handpass in our own game doesn't help, but even the Aussies out-manoeuvred us here too - whereas we handed the ball to guys beside us, whereupon they ran into a thicket of Aussies and got creeled, they always always found a man in space and had us running about like headless chickens.

Tactically, and I don't know if this a reflection on Boylan alone or the game in general, the Aussies showed us a thing or too as well. Time and time again they engineered space and got men free to collect marks despite our best efforts to man mark them, whereas the Irish guys had to resort to passing backwards and sideways etc. every time we were in possession because we never had a man in space. We could learn alot from the Aussies there I think. The number of times we resorted to despairingly hoofing a 50-50 up the field was depressing and the lack of finesse in our approach was disconcerting, but like I said that might be down to Boylan and it could have been different had a different manager been on the sideline.

There was also the profligacy in front of the posts which for seasoned intercounty and international footballers was simply unforgiveable. The second test we had been physically rattled, I grant you, but in the tamer first test there was an orgy of shots dropped short or blazed wide for behinds or worse, no score at all. Year after year the Aussies take a round ball for three weeks and kick it over the bar and into the net better than us and anyone who thinks this doesn't show up certain deficiencies in our own game, even allowing for their professionalism/fitness/strength etc., needs to have a word with themsevles. You see this type of basic error at all levels of our native game as well.

Something else we should bear in mind as well is how sanitised gaelic football has become. Look around you, the big strong men have disappeared out of the game in favour of light, quick nippy lads with great engines. Players don't take the same hits in gaelic football that the used to because it's over-policed - some of the frees you see given now are ridiculous and more than one manager has remarked how it's turning into a very soft game - so it's no wonder that we could slug it out with the Aussies back in the 80s but feel like we've been shocked and awed and can't handle it when the same stuff starts today.
Title: Re: Footballing lesson from the Aussies
Post by: tayto on November 14, 2006, 12:23:59 PM
We managed it all the week before when physical intimidation was at a minimum. also the ladies were footpassing like good things as there was no rugby tackle in their game, the men were rushing everything in the second test and really seemed half panicked about everything they did. I've no doubt we'd have given a much better account for ourselves if the first 15 minutes hadnt been violent.
Title: Re: Footballing lesson from the Aussies
Post by: dubnut on November 14, 2006, 12:27:29 PM
Good point, poor kicking wasnt an issue for most of the championship either.
How you can judge our kicking skills on one hybrid game under those circumstances surprises me.
Title: Re: Footballing lesson from the Aussies
Post by: cavanmaniac on November 14, 2006, 03:40:26 PM
Well poor shooting is an issue in more championship matches every summer than it isn't and my point about kicking is that it's not a problem per se in gaelic football, because there's no need to kick direct into a guy's arms in gaelic. Hence, a lack of skill in executing this is never exposed.

And fair enough if it doesn't need to be done to prosper in gaelic then why bother perfecting it, but my point is we should be able to quickly become proficient at it in the few weeks of the International Rules, especially if the bloody Aussies can, that have never seen a round ball apart from 3 weeks of the year!
Title: Re: Footballing lesson from the Aussies
Post by: dubnut on November 14, 2006, 04:01:20 PM
Good point, however as full time pros they have probably been adapting full time for weeks beforehand while our lads are still trying to squeeze it in on tuesday and thursday nights!
Title: Re: Footballing lesson from the Aussies
Post by: darbyo on November 14, 2006, 05:20:28 PM
Lads some of you seem to be missing the main point of my argument.Forget about the Aussies and the IR for a second and lets evaluate the standard in our own game.Of course there will always be bad games,passages of poor play,and shocking misses,regardless of the sport or the level. But maybe we're not critically evaluating our own games enough.Someone made the point of over coaching being part of the problem, I would argue that it is more a case of the wrong type of coaching. At adult level it seems your a tactical genius if you set out your stall to restrict the opposition to 6 scores or less while only a naive coach goes out with an attacking policy.However, it is not adult football I'm talking about, what I'm questioning is the way we coach kids. I feel we should be far more proactive in ensuring that the kids we coach are actually mastering the basic skills, Gooch's or Stevie O'Neill's will always come along every so often but maybe with the right direction and application we could raise the bar for everyone.
Title: Re: Footballing lesson from the Aussies
Post by: dubnut on November 14, 2006, 05:22:57 PM
"Forget about the Aussies and the IR for a second and lets evaluate the standard in our own game"

Why is the thread entitled "footballing lesson from the Aussies" then?  ::)
Title: Re: Footballing lesson from the Aussies
Post by: darbyo on November 14, 2006, 05:32:25 PM
Fair point I guess,but I was only commenting on the Aussies as we don't have an international frame of reference to compare ourselves to, but as Cavanmanic pointed out, the Aussies performed the skills of our game better than us.I think we should be seeking to learn from them and other sports similar to our own to see if there are better ways of doing things
Title: Re: Footballing lesson from the Aussies
Post by: dubnut on November 14, 2006, 05:42:49 PM
Darbyo, nothing personal but this bugs the shit out of me, why should we be looking for International frames of reference.
If we played Gaelic football internationally then fine. But we dont.

The poor kicking in the second test stands out as particularly bad but this is not a decent comparison to most intercounty GAA games, especially given the conditions of this test, which was unlike the majority of GAA games where players are much more protected.
Yeah look to improve standards, but if anything its becoming MORE like professionals that is doing us damage, its all physical power and speed and less skill for many teams these days.
Title: Re: Footballing lesson from the Aussies
Post by: tayto on November 14, 2006, 05:44:15 PM
Quote from: darbyo on November 14, 2006, 05:32:25 PM
the Aussies performed the skills of our game better than us.

Sorry to go on about the IR but I just don't agree with the above statement.

You can't ignore the fact that they only outplayed us after they'd bate the heads off us.

Our basic skills went out the window shortly afterwards, they went from strength to strength, as they're more used to dust ups and generally came out on top of the violent confrontations.

In the first match they didnt perform basic skills beter then us. Also they had the week between the games together traning and our players only met up again on the thursday.

Sure, you can probably always improve coaching but using the IR as an example of us being poor at certain skills is inaccurate IMHO.
Title: Re: Footballing lesson from the Aussies
Post by: criostlinn on November 14, 2006, 05:55:31 PM
Players nowadays are not encouraged to use the footpass. In the modern game the emphasis is on retaining possecion. One of the best passers of the ball with the foot in the game at the moment Ciaran McDonald is ridiculed if the pass is not directly into a team mates hands. He gets accused of always trying to be to fancy. Twice I read in sunday papers this year that if mayo wanted to go anywhere they had to drop mc donald. Managers knowadays are happier with players like Paul Galvin who are a safer bet. Many taught the same when mc donald was picked ahead of galvin for a gpa allstar.