New Roscommon manager is too important a decision to be rushed
The decision to appoint Davy Burke's successor shouldn't be rushed. It's about getting the right manager for Roscommon. Picture: INPHO/Leah Scholes
I’m sure the search has started in earnest at this stage for the next Roscommon senior football manager. I’ve heard very little about it yet, which is the way it should be.
My strongest feeling on it is that I’d like to see a Roscommon man take it on. Okay, in some situations it might be best for a county to look for some outside expertise, but, by and large, it’s best to stay local. How many of the top teams in the country have outside managers?
For all the advances in sophisticated coaching techniques, S&C mumbo-jumbo and all that, identity and pride of place remain massively important. When it comes down to it, in the heat of knockout championship football, you've got to be able to delve deep inside a team’s psyche to motivate them to hit the heights of intensity, such as we’ve seen from Donegal and Kerry this year for example.
Players must believe they’re playing for a cause much greater than themselves. In the GAA, there has to be a connection between the team and the people of the county. We’ve got to all feel like we’re in it together.
That must be driven from the top, by someone utterly consumed by a passion for Roscommon football. You can’t fake this kind of stuff.
Yes, go after the best of expertise in terms of S&C coaches, live statistical analysis and psychology. But it has to begin with one person who has a clear vision of where we are going, and a conviction bordering on madness to go after it with everything he’s got.
It’s been a fair while since we had a Rossie as manager. Okay, Kevin McStay wasn’t a real outsider as he has lived for years in Roscommon and had been fully ingrained in our club football.
But before that I think it was 2012 with Des Newton when we last had a local over the team on his own.
I never expected the joint-manager option of McStay and Fergie O’Donnell to work, for the same reason I never expect it to work with any team. There needs to be a clear guiding light over each group.
To be successful, they must have their North Star and follow it fanatically. That can only be the case if there is one clear figurehead at the top, driving everything. No matter how much two lads agree on tactics and logistics and line-ups, there will always be some divergence in the case of joint-managers.
It’s not about being right or wrong all the time. It’s about a singular, crystal-clear vision of where you want to go, which everyone can row in behind. Get that right, and the players will go through walls for you and for their county.
The appointment process can be tricky. Not everyone who might be interested in it will immediately put their hand up for it. It’s up to the selection committee to decide on who they want, and then go after him.
I think at times we have an unhealthy fascination with “modern” coaches from other counties. There are plenty of good football minds within Roscommon.
I’d be sure we’d be able to put together a top-class management team made up mostly or entirely of Rossies.
Looking around the county, it’s easy to pick out some excellent strength and conditioning coaches and football coaches as well as nutritionists and analysts. A high level of expertise is important, but that needs to be allied with huge energy and enthusiasm for the task at hand.
Anyway, the first appointment is the critical one. If I was on the selection committee, I’d want to be blown away by a candidate’s depth of thinking and passion for the role.
It’s too important a decision to be rushed, but it would be great if it could be sorted before the knockout stages of the club championships.
A classic? In a final? Unlikely, but who knows?
Sunday’s decider is a fascinating game in so many ways. I occasionally like to have a flutter on sports events but this is one I’d definitely not touch. The bookies have Kerry as the slightest of favourites. I have it the other way around.
If Kerry hit the heights they’re capable of, I think they’ll win by four or five. But I feel Donegal are the more reliable in terms of the repeatability of their performance level.
Their gameplan relies on aggressive but controlled scramble defending, allied to powerful support running at a level we’ve never seen before. Kerry rely on the execution of more difficult skills, like kick passing and shooting from distance.
How do you set up a team to thwart David Clifford?
Donegal are as well set as anyone for this task. I expect he’ll always have two on him. For Kerry, they’ll have worked a lot on exploiting that scenario, i.e. if extra defenders are drawn in, how do they best move the ball to the other side where Donegal will have left themselves vulnerable?
Paudie Clifford is very good at being like a point guard in those attacks, and I’d suggest that Kerry would be best to keep Seanie O’Shea on the opposite wing to Clifford, so that when Donegal swarm around Clifford Jnr., he should be able to pop it back out to his brother who in turn can switch the play to O’Shea who should have more space.
To this end, it’s very important for Kerry that they get big, scoring performances out of some of their other forwards — the likes of O’Shea, the Geaneys etc.
If I was on the Kerry side, I’d be pushing for lots of slow attacks — ones where they move the Donegal defensive system from side to side numerous times before picking holes when they appear. The effectiveness of this is somewhat subject to the weather conditions. If it’s warm and dry with little wind, I feel that plays right into Kerry’s hands as they will make hay with doubles.
A wet, blustery day would be perfect for Donegal. They’d be able to sit in a deeper defensive structure knowing that Kerry won’t be quite as dangerous from doubles.
It comes easy to feel that Donegal will bring a big performance, whatever the conditions. The repeatability of their gameplan is a massive plus. They will look to run Kerry into the ground with their swashbuckling counter-attacks.
They have plenty of big attacking threats — Murphy, Gallen, O’Donnell, Langan, with McBrearty and Ó’Baoill off the bench. I wonder if Kerry have enough good man-markers to keep tabs on all those.
I’d imagine Donegal will put considerable emphasis on kerbing the strong runs from deep from Joe O’Connor. You can picture it now. O’Connor makes a big solo run through the middle early on but he’s met around the top of the arc by three Donegal men who rob him and leave him on his backside.
The crowd will love it and the Donegal lads will sweep into a devastating counter-attack through the likes of McHugh and Moore and finish with Murphy stroking it over the bar.
The tone will be set early on and I expect it to be something like that. Will Kerry be able to match that fire? The evidence from their last two games suggests they will.
I know it rarely happens in finals but I’m very tempted to say we could be in for a classic.
