I don't think Kerr is really hitting out at other sports such as football/hurling/rugby.
Ireland is quite unique in that we have multiple field sports all available to most school kids.
Vast majority of European & South American countries really only have soccer as a main field sport. There are obviously some exceptions but numbers wise very few countries do not have soccer as the overwhelming main sport. E.g. England has rugby & soccer, but I'd guess that less than 10% of kids have actually ever played rugby.
The impact on soccer of all these sports is that our "style" is vastly different to most other countries, and we tend to play a much faster, more physical type of game.
A lot of GAA players will play soccer during their off-season (and some rugby lads during their season) and thus they don't really have a major foundation on say passing drills/positioning etc. A lot of them will be quiet good skill wise, but most rely on fitness/physicality. This in turn forces those who solely play soccer to also play more physical so as to be able to compete.
I don't really play a lot of competitive soccer any more but I do play a lot of astro these days, and in the company I work in we have a large number of Spanish/Italian/French/south Americans who I play against now and again. From talking to any of them it is obvious that the way we play is very alien to them. E.g. you will almost always hear some fella roar out that everyone must be marked which will almost certainly have come from a GAA lad playing centre-half.
(P.S. my background is GAA, but I did play a lot of soccer from my late teens onwards).
There is also the question on why British players play so differently to say Spanish/Italian players, and no doubt Irish players play pretty much the same way. That question is harder to explain.
As I've said I don't think Kerr is having a cut at other sports, it is simply that if soccer was by far the main field sport here as it is in most other countries then we would have a much better chance of improving our basic skill/technical levels.
Ireland is quite unique in that we have multiple field sports all available to most school kids.
Vast majority of European & South American countries really only have soccer as a main field sport. There are obviously some exceptions but numbers wise very few countries do not have soccer as the overwhelming main sport. E.g. England has rugby & soccer, but I'd guess that less than 10% of kids have actually ever played rugby.
The impact on soccer of all these sports is that our "style" is vastly different to most other countries, and we tend to play a much faster, more physical type of game.
A lot of GAA players will play soccer during their off-season (and some rugby lads during their season) and thus they don't really have a major foundation on say passing drills/positioning etc. A lot of them will be quiet good skill wise, but most rely on fitness/physicality. This in turn forces those who solely play soccer to also play more physical so as to be able to compete.
I don't really play a lot of competitive soccer any more but I do play a lot of astro these days, and in the company I work in we have a large number of Spanish/Italian/French/south Americans who I play against now and again. From talking to any of them it is obvious that the way we play is very alien to them. E.g. you will almost always hear some fella roar out that everyone must be marked which will almost certainly have come from a GAA lad playing centre-half.
(P.S. my background is GAA, but I did play a lot of soccer from my late teens onwards).
There is also the question on why British players play so differently to say Spanish/Italian players, and no doubt Irish players play pretty much the same way. That question is harder to explain.
As I've said I don't think Kerr is having a cut at other sports, it is simply that if soccer was by far the main field sport here as it is in most other countries then we would have a much better chance of improving our basic skill/technical levels.