COACHING'S THE KEY TO SUCCESS
THE right coaching is the key to Dublin’s continued success, not their plentiful resources. That’s the view of Declan Darcy, who turned out for Leitrim and the Dubs as a player and has been Jim Gavin’s right hand man since their days together with the Blues’ under-21s. Darcy was commenting after yet more talk of splitting the capital in two following a fifth All-ireland football success in seven years. “When I was playing for Leitrim (inset), it didn’t bother me,” he said. “We were lucky in that we had a really good group of players to compete. “That comes in cycles. I would say the cycle would be wider in Leitrim than in Dublin - that population might feed the teams. “But I’m involved with Clan Na Gael Fontenoys, a small club, 600 or 700 kids competing against the likes of Kilmacud Crokes and Ballyboden, who would have three or four times the size of us. “Just because they have a bigger population it doesn’t mean they are any better than us. “Everyone has to look after what they have. In Leitrim it was actually a good asset to have a small group to work from. I remember the Offaly hurlers, they had a small group but were very effective because they were a tightly knit group - like a good club team. “If you get that right with a good group of players it is very effective. “If you don’t put the hard yards into coaching and have the right people involved, it doesn’t matter whether you have a million people or 100 people. It’s irrelevant. “The club I was involved in with Leitrim, we had 250 people and still we could compete with the best and bigger clubs because of the coaching.”