Horan has set an example, will others take his lead?
Mayo manager has shown that life as an elite player need not be a penance
4 Mayo had four points to spare over Kerry, 3-11 to 2-10, in the Allianz League final earlier this month
NOT CONTENT with reinvigorating the Mayo footballers, James Horan is now also freeing them from the joyless tyranny of the inter-county game. That, at least, was the story reported by Lee Keegan this week.
‘He treats us like adults,’ said Keegan of his returned manager.
‘This whole myth around you’re nearly a 30-year-old lad, you can’t go drinking? You have to debunk that because I mean if you can’t be treated like an adult then you are not going to act like one in training.’
That’s perfectly reasonable logic from an experienced player at the top level of his sport, honoured as an All-Star four times and judged by his peers to be the footballer of the year in 2016.
But it is also revolutionary thinking, going against the gospel that preaches the life of a modern player must be one of privation and joyless dedication.
The prevailing culture has been largely instituted by managers, whose demands on their players also explains why the club game is being reduced to a husk, and it also explains why the Club Players Association are so wearied by how the game is now run, that there is talk of strike action.
Players have also contributed to the asceticism that has resulted in them complaining about the gruelling drain on their lives.
In fact, the Gaelic Players Association based their demands for grant support on the sacrifices made by their members. So extensive was their commitment, they said, that it should be recognised by the State and backed up with scarce State resources.
The player welfare culture is built on the apparently compromised lives that are the result of a commitment to the inter-county game.
That was why Keegan’s comments were so bracing. This was one of the stars of football talking about a balanced life. There was no mention of 6am starts, of a diet ruthlessly weighed, or of a diary so stuffed with the requirements of their manager that there is no room left for family or friends.
Keegan was right. For a long time it’s been argued that regimes that expect players not to touch alcohol from winter until the following autumn treat young men like gormless kids. But to hear a player come out and say it is a joy. Everyone knows that to attain the levels of fitness required in the game today requires intense commitment and good nutrition. Pints and snack boxes should not figure in an important way in the diet of ambitious players. But nor should they be shut away like medieval monks. If James Horan’s second stint with Mayo features the sensible management Keegan outlined then the squad and their supporters have even more reason to be thankful than they were after the League final win, because it marks the manager out as an exception.
Misery remains the modus operandi in many counties, most of whom will not get within an ass’s roar of winning anything this year.
Because some teams succeeded through incredible commitment, and made a virtue of their selfdenial, others copied them.
It is sometimes suggested this started with Armagh in 2002, and in particular their captain.
Kieran McGeeney worked himself to the bone to become an AllIreland winner, and accounts of how he made himself into a champion inspired a generation.
Tyrone were famed for their toughness, too, and Kerry and later Dublin both learned from the effort expended by the big two in Ulster.
The Cork hurlers were, at the same time, making much of their inexhaustible routines, and the culture in Gaelic games was soon demanding startling levels of dedication, even from the no-hopers.
As a manager, interestingly, McGeeney has been one of the saner voices in the debate about the demands placed on players now. He once talked about friends of his who train for triathlons as a pastime, and he reckoned they did more sessions in a week than any inter-county panellist.
The trend was now set, though. Managers and coaches wanted access to their players at the exclusion of their clubs and loved ones.
The GPA, hungry for State recognition and enthusiastic fundraisers generally, turned the commitment of its membership into its main selling point.
Reversing the culture looks a feeble possibility now, even allowing for Keegan’s comments.
At least they introduced an alternative point of view, and the GAA should carefully note them.
If the current club impasse is to be broken, change will have to come at the elite level.
There is more to life than the county game. James Horan appears to recognise this.
His peers must follow.