Stay positive, Donegal

I have been a coach now for more years than I care to remember. Not at an elite level or anything and yet there are days when I can still almost run my finger over the scars of defeats that run through my head.

The hardest days have been those days when, at the final whistle, I watched the opposition celebrate in sheer delight as I walked around the field to acknowledge the efforts of my own disappointed players.

But such is sport and the very best coaches I have ever known, ever worked with, or had the pleasure to meet and learn from, have never measured success by the amount of silverware they won.

It is not that they won’t want to win. They want it more than anything, but to my mind, those coaches have learned to bring winning back into real-life focus.

They understand that, at the end of the competition, there will only be one winner and therefore they must dedicate the effort towards constantly improving those they work with.

That’s not to say that winning isn’t always their end game.

It has to be the target they set, the heights they hope to reach. Competing, for its own sake isn’t enough.

The desire to win, the highest aspirations, the will to be the very best – they have always got to be the central reasons to be there.

But they also know that there is no divine right to ever think they can always win. That, to get to those lofty heights, it takes huge amounts of training, dedication and sometimes even, luck.

Outside the elite levels (and indeed within elite levels) of sport, very few coaches get the kind of commitment from their players that Jim McGuinness enjoys from the Donegal lads.

And yet, even he has always known that, after all those efforts, winning is still never guaranteed.

It is why he has always talked of the performance, of the journey, of moving the team forward. It is, for him and his players, the thing that hurt most about yesterday. The performance they wanted, they had worked so hard for, just wasn’t there.

With an All-Ireland and three Ulster titles to their credit in the last four years, his players have known the sweet taste of victory, but they have also felt the pain of defeat.

None, I am certain, will feel any more achingly raw than the pain of losing at the final hurdle.

And yet, this bunch of players has already shown such resilience, such determination over the past few years, that each and every person in this county should, rather than wallowing in that defeat, take on board the mantra that Jim McGuinness has always set down for his teams.

Over the past few years their accomplishments have lifted the spirits in the county, but away from the football field we can and should follow their example.

In business, in tourism, in schools, in general life, we should set our targets high, work hard, take the knocks and, rather than lying down licking our wounds, get back up and go again.

We have a lot to be thankful for and who knows what greater heights we can get to if we really want it badly enough.

Stay positive, Donegal and remember… Commit – Focus – Believe – Achieve.

Players on a journey that demands total dedication

At 2.30am on a Saturday morning and just a little over three hours after the birth of his baby son Noah in Letterkenny General Hospital, Karl Lacey was on the road driving through the night en route to Johnstown House in County Meath for training with his Donegal teammates.

In itself that may not be all that surprising – considering the game the team was preparing for was an All-Ireland semi-final against Dublin – but it was just another example of the type of commitment this group of players has shown to the Donegal cause.

The fact that the Four Masters man felt any kind of conflict when the team headed off to their training camp, shows exactly the kind of mentality it has taken to bring this group to where they are now.

“The boys were going away on the training camp and my partner went into hospital on the Wednesday and had the baby on Friday. It was a wee bit hard juggling both – should I go down to the boys? Should I stay around the hospital? In fairness to Jim and Paul McGonigle they were great support, they told me to stay where I was, there were things that were more important.

Ciara had the baby on the Friday night so I went down then and joined the boys for training on Saturday morning. The baby was born at 11pm so I left the hospital at 2.30am and drove to Johnstown House throughout the night and trained on the Saturday morning.”

Often in the run up to a game as huge and significant as the All-Ireland Final, terms like commitment are often bandied around without much consideration of what is actually involved.

But Donegal manager Jim McGuinness knew from the outset that getting commitment from his players was only a starting point. Once it was given the real work, the real preparation, could begin.

In the run up to the 2012 final McGuinness said he loved to work with people who want to achieve, people who are trying to push themselves to become better and fulfill their potential.

Last week he suggested that this was one such group of special players.

“For me, we have had a very committed group of players that have worked unbelievably hard. I have pushed them so hard to get them to this level. The harder you push them the more they want to be pushed.”

The gold standard of commitment was set for the Donegal manager during his college days in Tralee.
“The thing that struck me when I was in Kerry was how professional they were. In my experience of Kerry and the players that I played with, they were so dedicated to making themselves better. It was a wake-up call in many respects.

We trained four days on and three days off and we trained twice a day – a gym session at 7am in the morning and a pitch session at 7pm in the evening on the four days we were on. Players like Seamus Moynihan who lived in Glenflesk and Jack Ferriter and players who lived in Dingle, they were travelling. Leaving on time to be in Tralee for that 7am session. They were on the road at or before 6am to be in for training and a player like Seamus didn’t have to prove anything to anyone at that stage.”

Everything there was organised and structured and at that time football in Donegal had not got to that level, but McGuinness was showing the same kind of dedication and making the long trek back to Donegal to play for his club Naomh Conaill.

“I don’t think I missed a league game for my club during that time because we were trying to make ground ourselves at that stage, trying to move the club forward and I felt that was important.”

The Donegal manager has enjoyed a similar level of dedication from his squad for whom a trip by helicopter for some to training is very much the exception rather than the rule.

Paul Durcan, one of the players to hitch the ride on the helicopter recently, enjoyed the experience, but when they aren’t able to make the trip back to Donegal he and the other Dublin based players train under the watchful eye of Eugene Eivers at Blanchardstown IT.

“The helicopter cut the journey by five hours round trip but the other nights Jim Eivers is very good and focused at what he does. He makes it easier. It is always sharp and the facilities up there are second to none. We are very lucky to have that on our doorstep and then you get back to Donegal on the Thursday. You play ball with the boys those nights.”

McGuinness lived with Eivers for two years during his time in Tralee and, because he knows that Eivers understands the kind of dedication required, trusts him.

But then again the manager trusts everyone in his set-up now to give their all to the journey they are on.

He has to, given what he described himself as ‘a nightmare situation’ in terms of preparation during the winter with up to 15 or 16 of the players at college or working out of the county.

According to Rory Kavanagh – one of the players who many felt might have decided to pull the plug at the end of last year – once the players had got together and decided to give it another go, it was a case of really putting the shoulder to the wheel.

“We wanted to show our character, show what we were about because that was important to us and that was a big factor in my coming back as well. We were back pushing each other on early and getting the work done away from the group sessions as well was important. It’s hard to gauge if we’ve worked harder but we have all put the shoulder to the wheel for sure.”

When he says all, he means all.

Substitute goalkeeper Michael Boyle hasn’t seen too much playing time for his county in recent years, but with Karl Lacey trekked up and down the road from Limerick twice a week for training.

Missing training for these guys is not an option.

“I’m well used to the driving now, in my own head if I miss training I’d be thinking about it and it would be putting doubts in my head. Michael is doing the same course so it meant I had company – he can fairly chat as well and we shared the driving,” said Karl Lacey.

“We would head down on a Sunday evening, have class on Monday, class on Tuesday come back up for training on Tuesday night, head back down the road on Wednesday morning, come back up on a Thursday and back down again. There was no other way around it. It’s all just a balancing act trying to fit it around the football.”

But even things as seemingly simple as getting their frame of mind right, are not being taken for granted by the players.

“I try to get a wee jog down at the pitch in Magheragallon, just to get away from it all. That head-space is invaluable. I just go down to the pitch or take a leisurely stroll on the beach or have a dip at the pier. You need that head space,” said Neil Magee.

It all seems a far cry from the meetings last year when they had gathered collectively to lick wounds after the defeat to Mayo and ponder the steps ahead.

“We needed to know what we were going to do,” said McGuinness of the meeting he held with the players. “A half-baked attitude wasn’t going to win anything.”

But the Donegal boss didn’t want instant commitment at that meeting. He wanted his players to go away and think about what they would be signing up for.

“I said to them, you need to think long and hard and deep about this. You need to look inside yourselves. You need to decide if this is the road I am going down I am happy enough to sacrifice the next ten or eleven months out of my life.”

All the miles put in since, all the hours of sweat and toil and hard work and determination have gone a huge way to answering those questions.

For those players who sat down, battle scarred and wounded last year with Jim McGuinness at the end of last season, are now just one step away once more from the ultimate prize.

Stepping into the light…

A fortnight before the All-Ireland Final day and, as Donegal fans stood in lines waiting to meet and greet their heroes, an impromptu match had broken out on the far side of the pitch at MacCumhaill Park.

Young supporters – probably those who had been early enough to be out from the queues – had divided themselves into teams and were going full pelt on a make-shift small pitch.

Both teams were clad in Donegal shirts, but that suited the youngsters (who ranged in ages from 6 or 7 to around 11 or 12) perfectly fine. They all wanted to be Donegal players anyway.

As some of their heroes sat and signed autographs a few hundred yards away on the stand side, the youngsters tried to emulate them in the frenzied game of their own.

They were oblivious to the adults who stood around talking football and remarking on what a glorious day it was for Donegal football.

Lost in battle, these youngsters – at least some of whom probably watched their Donegal heroes play before on the turf at MacCumhaill Park – went hammer and tongs at each other.

Unaware that people like Marty Morrissey or Charlie Collins or Oisin Kelly were even in the vicinity, the youngsters occasionally spilled an odd spurt of spontaneous commentary of their own.

And when they did, it was the names of the Donegal players that fell freely from their lips.

This was raw football. The pure, street-kind of football that youngsters played for hours on end before the invention of games consoles and the internet.

The kind they played on small housing estate greens and streets in the 70s and 80s.

But there was a difference. At that time the names that rolled off the tongue were, more often than not, Kerry players. Or Dublin. Well at least, not usually, Donegal.

Those were different times of course.

There were few games outside the All-Ireland final on television and with Dublin and Kerry contesting so many of the deciders, it wasn’t really a huge surprise that players like Eoin Liston, Mikey Sheehy, Charlie Nelligan, Tim Kenelley, John Egan, Páidí Ó Sé, Ogie Moran, Paddy Cullen, Jimmy Keaveney, Brian Mullins and yes, even Pat Spillane, were among the best known players of the time.

Kerry set the standard and the muffled commentary and excitement of that hectic and free-flowing game in MacCumhaill Park, brought a flashback of a Sunday evening on the street in front of our house, pumped with the excitement of having watched an All-Ireland final.

The ball we had was just one of those plastic ones from a newsagents, but as I grabbed it from the air and turned, in my mind I was Eoin Liston, leaving the Dubs for dead and firing high and over the bar to the acclaim of the crowd.

I swiveled and let fly, raising my eyes just in time to see the ball bounce off the overhead wires.

Sparks flew and in an instant the power for the entire street was gone.

Like any self-respecting 11-year-olds we did the natural thing.

So, we grabbed the ball and ran away, still making up commentary as we raced to the field with the ball.

Watching the youngsters engrossed in their battle in MacCumhaill Park a few weeks ago, seeing the autographed shirts they wore and hearing the names they dropped in their frantic fight for victory, it was clear that there is real power now again in Donegal.

Adults and youngsters alike have their very own Donegal heroes to emulate and admire, and as the Minor and Senior players spread the light of joy and excitement by their sheer presence, who is to say that the next batch of Donegal heroes weren’t already there, honing their skills in their very shadow?

(This piece was written for the Donegal News and first appeared in their Monday edition of September 15th 2014)

Getting over the hurdle in your head is the first step

On Monday night (all going well) I will head along to the start of the 6th week of intensive bootcamp-style training, where, unless things change somewhere along the line in the last week, it’ll only take around 20 minutes or so before I start to curse trainer Emmet Rushe.

I’ll do that in my head of course – if he heard you he would probably just laugh – but there is always the danger he’ll get you to do more. So I’ll curse him quietly in the 20th minute and the 45th minute and by the time I’m in the car driving home I’ll be buzzing with a sense of accomplishment.

For the sake of disclosure at this point I should point out that I know Emmet, in case anyone thinks the point of this post is some long-winded testimonial. Should it read that way by the time I’m finished this, well then I’m sure Emmet will be delighted, but it wasn’t exactly what I had in mind when I decided last week it was about time I began to make better use of my blog. I’ve been able to think on lots of things in recent weeks.

Clarify, compartmentalise and act on things that often would have had weighed me down, had my head wrecked. In years gone by I guess the release from those head-wrecking things came from playing and training for football. Truth be told, for a long part of my playing days I hated training with a passion. It wasn’t exactly the physical side of it – I never really ever carried weight and I was younger and fitter – it was more the drudgery. It wasn’t that I totally hated running.

When I was very young I ran for a while with Lifford Athletic Club and years later when I was playing astro-turf football with other players of a certain vintage, my biggest attribute for the hour was probably the fact that I’d just keep on running. But when training night after night, week after week, involved running circuits of a pitch and then shuttle sprints it all became a little stale. Not that it was anyone’s fault.

Coaching education hadn’t really evolved until it was almost time for me to hang up the boots, and even then there were a few who remained unconvinced about the need for change. It doesn’t seem like that long ago that I stopped playing, but long enough for me to notice the effect it was having on me when I did. I knew I wanted to be fitter than I was. Like starting any exercise regime though, taking the first step was always the hardest.

Friends had been going to sessions for a couple of years with Emmet and while I had always been tempted, my head held me back with all sorts of excuses when there really wasn’t any. The bootcamp-style sessions I’ll head along to for the 6th week next week are called the ‘Better Bodies’ programme, because, quite simply they are made up of a group of people who are looking to improve their body. A mixed group of genders, ages and levels of fitness, everyone is there with their own goal in mind, working on a fitness programme and sticking to a diet plan of good, wholesome food.

Monday night will see the last week of the third series of this programme. I had reasons in my head why I shouldn’t attend the first two. One or two of those reasons were genuine, but the truth is, had I really wanted to, I could have made them. Instead, I held myself back thinking about things like – I’ve never trained in a gym before, what if I look like a twat compared to the rest of the group – and other such nonsense. I was a fool. Granted after the first few nights, those questions were quick to re-surface. The easy way to stop the pain would have been to drop out. But I didn’t, and even that was a small victory.

Every night after that, every extra press-up, every extra-squat, every extra few seconds I could hold myself in the plank position, was a victory for me. Some nights I went having had the most horrific of days. And, in the presence of a group who were working collectively towards individual goals, I pushed myself until I was beyond tired. Until I was done. I am not saying it was easy.

On the drive home recently I found myself counting injuries sustained over the years. Torn ankle ligaments, torn knee ligaments (that required surgery), shattered kneecap, torn (absolutely shredded) hamstring, chipped pelvic bone, injured vertebrae, torn shoulder muscle and even a gash just above my right eye socket that needed 18 stitches, blackened my entire face and closed both my eyes for almost a fortnight. Eye gash aside, I’ve felt every one of those injuries (and maybe a few I didn’t even know I had) come back to haunt me over the past few weeks.

The knees in particular have led the charge to my head urging it to get me to quit. But I haven’t. And I haven’t because, since I started I have felt invigorated. I have felt under much less stress and, having spent almost a year when a great night’s sleep might be three hours, I have been enjoying (absolutely savouring as a matter of fact) wonderful rest. And, this folks is the point.

We’ve all heard the saying healthy mind and healthy body, but the reality is that the mind, can often be the one thing that stands in your way of taking that first step. You need to be the one to get past that. To get past the excuses and then take whatever the first steps are for you to improve your fitness and your diet. Emmet’s classes work for me. The curses (quiet ones of course) will continue next week I have no doubt, but when the six weeks are done I know for sure I’ll be back again to start again on the next six week programme.

I have got past the excuses in my head, taken the first steps and haven’t looked back. But if you are reading this and have yet to take your first step – whatever healthy route you choose – I say don’t let your head hold you back. The only exercise workout you’ll ever regret – is the one you don’t do!