THE NOT SO GRAND PLAN
AT the Aviva Stadium, the home of ‘rugby and soccer’ according to the giant billboard, the ground staff were giving the pitch a neat back and sides yesterday in time for Six Nations combat between Ireland and Wales on Saturday.
Across the river, the wind whistled through the rickety enclosures of Tolka Park where the grass was ankle-high and the surface as rough as a badger’s backside ahead of Shelbourne versus Shamrock Rovers on Friday.
Maybe it’s all part of a grand plan by Damien Duff to knock Rovers out of their drive-for-five stride? Hide the ball in the long grass. With Duffer, you never know. Duff was on call after Marc Canham, the FAI’s Director of Football, earlier rolled out the association’s Football Pathways Plan.
Safe to say, Duff is unlikely to get stuck into the fine print of Canham’s 12-year mission for his bedtime reading.
‘It’s all very well having a plan. I’ve a plan every week which I try to execute and do it with lovely
“Academy players going to England at 18 is too late”
presentations (which) I take great pride in. I’ll forward it (Pathways Plan) on to everybody. Skins (Paul Skinner, goalkeeper coach) and Joey O’Brien. They can read it because I won’t be reading it,’ he said.
Maybe the FAI should have spoken to Duff among their 11,000 consultations. Maybe they should have invited him to the Aviva.
Instead, Canham rolled out a choreographed PowerPoint presentation in the swish Havelock Suite amid suited PR consultants on the FAI payroll, and a selection of vegan rolls. In contrast, a tracksuited Duffer held court in a poorly lit bar at crumbly Tolka Park and cut through the slides and the spiel. Duff is a street footballer, who played at the highest level for club and country, and is now managing at the highest level in the League of Ireland.
He has banked much in his 25plus years on the coalface and doesn’t flinch when it comes to his opinion or what’s needed to improve the underage structures and make young players better. Maybe because he shoots from the lip, and is so engaging in doing so, he was omitted from the FAI’s list of those they spoke to.
‘I might speak a lot of s**t so I’m fine with that. I’ve no interest in it anyway. There’s a lot of voices out there that don’t need my stuff thrown in. I wouldn’t be knocking on the door of the FAI and Marc (Canham) because I’m no expert on anything but I do speak from my heart and am a bit emotional.
‘I’d like to think that I speak some common sense and truth. I’m not afraid to speak my mind with a bit of passion because I’m not afraid of upsetting anyone in there. Sometimes the most dangerous person in the room is the man with nothing to lose.
‘I don’t need to keep people in there happy. I’m not looking at the endgame or long game. I just say it as it is now.’
For Duff, the way to improve standards is to improve academy facilities at all clubs, starting with kids as young as eight.
‘Academy players, I’ll call them, are going away at 16 to Europe, 18 to England. It’s too late. They haven’t played enough football. That’s why near-on every footballer that goes comes back. If there are academy players going away, the onus is on academies to send away better players as the player going at 16 or 18 is too late to be polished up.
‘(Shamrock) Rovers maybe do it semi well, they tie in with schools. You come back and train. Feeling the ball, feeling the ball, feeling the ball. But coaching can be better, facilities can be better. Can we make better players at eight, nine, ten, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16? Absolutely. There’s a plan and it doesn’t take 55 pages.’
‘Plans for me are about execution straight away. Time waits for no man. I took the 17s a couple of weeks ago. They might do two nights a week and one night with gym. They might think “I train three days a week with Shels and and I’m a footballer”. No you’re not. You’re light years behind.
FAI initiative leaves Duff cold
Rovers, everyone says “Brilliant, what an academy.” Or “What an academy at Pat’s, look at this.” Have we really done anything? I don’t think so.
‘Academies for me is where the future of Irish football is. Contact hours, facilities, you tie it in with all the countries around the world.
‘First and foremost it comes down to contact hour. Can we pay for a pitch for an extra two-three nights a week?
‘OK, we can, is there a pitch available for two-three nights a week? No there’s not.
‘In pre-season, I was knocking on the doors of amateur clubs looking to play a pre-season friendly there. Tolka Rovers, what a set-up, I think they own the ground, it’s beautiful.
‘I am asking can we play there and I am a Premier Division club so something is gone severely wrong along the line.’
Duff was a little bemused to hear the Irish Government yesterday commit to ploughing €50m into the Casement Park rebuild for Euro 2028, after which the GAA will be the beneficiaries.
‘How many games will it (Casement) host?’ he asked.
‘Four? Great. We’ll go to the toilet four times. I’d rather it was spent on academies. It’s not always black and white. Some people would prefer to spend it on stadiums.’