Counties like Carlow must find own level, says Gannon
TURLOUGH O’BRIEN always encouraged his Carlow footballers to express themselves. Whatever their view on a particular issue, he was always eager for them to get it out in the open.
In the former manager’s mind, Carlow needed to be seen and heard, not just on Leinster Championship afternoons when they beat Kildare in 2018 or on qualifier nights in Netwatch Cullen Park against Monaghan and Tyrone, but in general.
“He encouraged us to do things differently and to say whatever you wanted to say,” recalled Seán Gannon. “’Stop trying to hide with all the clichéd bull***t. It’s hard to get away from that because you don’t want to write the other team’s dressing-room speeches, but he encouraged us to speak our opinion.
“A lot of them (players) are opinionated, you can see that sometimes on Twitter. But then you see the tweets deleted because they get a little phone call – ‘you’re bringing too much attention there’.
“We need to get rid of that because robots just aren’t attracted to the public. You want to see personality in a guy,” he said.
As a result, when it comes to Carlow’s place in the greater scheme of things, he disagrees with his former manager who was opposed to any notion of a second-tier championship.
For Gannon, it has to happen because “there is not much point” to the current structure.
One of O’Brien’s last instructions, before he stepped down earlier this month, was for players to take a break.
“A lot of counties didn’t really stop but after John Horan’s interview on the ‘Sunday Game’ that there would be no inter-county until October he advised us to “forget about it, do your own things and get it out of your head, the time will come again when you will have to go back and play football”.
O’Brien was an advocate of less successful counties continuing to mix it with the big boys yet, Gannon notes, his first love was the National League. And that’s where Carlow’s future lies now, the Éire Óg player feels.
Critical
“It’s a difficult one and it’s hard in the position I’m in (Leinster GAA coach) to be critical, but the championship: what is the point of it, bar the top three teams and even that? Realistically it’s the National League that was great for us. Turlough loved the league but didn’t like the championship even though the league is a tiered competition.
“I can understand his opinion. We had some great days out here. I can’t remember when Netwatch Cullen Park was full but when Tyrone and Monaghan came it was packed, brilliant days. And even Kildare, they were Division 1, we were Division 4. We won’t get the opportunity to play those outside Leinster.
“I agree with him on that but until it is a more level playing field, it’s like the FA Cup, it’s great for the one day out, two days out, get a bit of a run. But it wouldn’t be a realistic target at the start of the year, that would have to be, for 90 per cent of teams, your league.
“I personally was looking forward to a B championship because it gave me an opportunity to win something, I thought.”
Gannon still feels there is something left in the county’s experienced and ageing group of players.
“Potentially there is another year or two with this team where we can really perform but then the whole question is, and this is the sad part, if we play the older guys, are we stopping younger players getting the experience they
need so that in three years time they’ll
be able to go on? That’s the dilemma you
face and that’s what a new manager is
going to have to deal with.
“We need a strong personality in
charge, we have a huge cohort who have 10 and 12 years done. A lot of us came in around 2008. From a selfish point of view, you would love to play as many games as you possibly can. Realistically, you probably need a lot of us around to bring on the other guys. That’s going to be a tough decision for any manager,” he conceded. “Sometimes you might have to get rid of some of the older guys to make room for young lads that will bring Carlow on.” Seán Gannon is Carlow games manager and was speakaing in conjunction with Leinster GAA Games Development Department’s launch of a number of new TURAS Coaching Resources. TURAS is the official Coach Developer Programme of Leinster GAA and is based around one simple philosophy that ‘Better Coaches = Better Players.’