Irish Daily Star - Inside Sport
Some of the excuses made for Derry and Armagh’s ruts would make you laugh...
peaks and troughs are accepted by too many
ARMAGH and Derry are two teams that are flying at the moment.
They’re also two teams with managers — Kieran McGeeney and Rory Gallagher — who have come in for plenty of criticism down through the years.
GAA supporters in both counties are expecting big things.
Barring a total disaster, Derry will be promoted to Division 1.
Armagh finally seem primed for a tilt at the Ulster Championship and to move out from the shadow of Tyrone, Donegal and Monaghan.
For Derry, it’s all about getting to Division 1 and then staying there for a spell.
You might get lucky one year but for sustained success it’s all about Division 1 (see Cavan’s 2020 Ulster Championship win as a good example).
If Derry get promoted to Division 1 and suffer an early Championship exit it’ll still be viewed as a successful year.
Armagh are moving well but they’re in a different space, where they’ll be judged on different terms. They need a run in the Championship.
McGeeney needs medals as currency in his back pocket.
They’ve a bit to go before they touch Tyrone but are Armagh and Derry on a trajectory to overtake Monaghan and Donegal?
Only the Championship will answer that.
They’ve gone through tough times, but in my opinion Armagh and Derry are both counties who should be in Division 1 every year.
It got me thinking why do teams go through such troughs? What causes them?
Are they unavoidable and should counties just sit back and accept them?
Prime
You see so many examples in different sports of teams dominating and then disappearing, Manchester United being the prime one that comes to mind.
Something changed in their culture and they are now a mere shadow of the team that Alex Ferguson managed for over 20 years.
Ferguson turned away an awful lot of talented players and people because they weren’t the right fit.
There’s also a school of thought that says Ferguson himself is partly to blame for that change in culture but that’s an argument for a different day.
I’d argue Dublin’s actual cultural downfall started when Jim Gavin sacrificed his values by asking Diarmuid Connolly back into the panel to give Gavin the best chance of more success.
I think the peaks and troughs are so much more varied in the GAA than other sports.
You can’t simply replace your retired superstar by buying the up-and-coming new kid on the block.
Money plays its part in GAA, yes, but there is so much more to it.
Look at Derry in ‘ 93 and Armagh in ‘02, when they made their All-Ireland breakthroughs and plot their trajectory then?
Both counties ticked a lot of boxes for success: population, identity etc but they fell into ruts.
You’d laugh at some of the reasons for said ruts.
Derry, sitting in one of the top five population centres in Ireland, would throw out the excuse that their club scene is too competitive to have a successful county team.
Count
Tyrone would say otherwise. I’ve lost count of the times over the years I’ve been at club games in Tyrone where county players have attempted to box the head off each other.
Armagh would dish out the line that Crossmaglen’s success was linked to the county’s misfortunes as the club game suffered as a whole. Totally bananas stuff.
They weren’t the only ones at it either. Teams across the GAA throwing out the same silly stuff. Silly excuses.
You can say success shouldn’t be about medals and that’s fair enough but Derry were a literal shambles a few years ago
when they were relegated to Division 4.
A county doesn’t need medals, just a chance to ensure that players are given the best opportunity to represent their county.
So many County Boards around the country couldn’t, and can’t, say that is happening
Some of my best days were when I was given the opportunity to simply live in the moment and give it my all. Nothing to do with medals.
There’s lessons to be learned from Derry and Armagh.
And just to throw it out there, when you look deeper I’m not entirely convinced either team have learned their lessons completely either.
Underage
The first place counties need to get it right is at underage level. You need to make sure there is a steady stream of players coming through.
There is no one size fits all
in this coaching model. Not every county should be running the same system.
Be it by sheer geography, population or demographics, counties around Ireland are going to be different.
But the overall goal of each age group should be to get three players to inter-county standard to replenish and grow the senior side.
Then make sure the rest are sent back to their clubs better players.
In some counties players are landing into their senior county team and they
haven’t a clue about tactics.
Skill levels are way off, and, most importantly, they haven’t a notion about the mentality a inter-county player should have.
Forget about winning medals. At least give players that opportunity.
The right type of player is important too. After Armagh won their All-Ireland they seemed to produce a steady stream of one type of player.
A lot of counties are doing this and it needs to be identified at underage level and addressed.
The right people have to be involved at County Board level too.
And a system in place where they are all operating from the same hymn sheet. It doesn’t matter if the personnel change, it’s all about staying true to what the culture is about.
Natural
There is a lot more to it but I’m not sure we should accept the peaks and troughs as a natural way in the county game as much as we do.
Derry and Armagh are on the way up again.
Then it will be some other county’s turn to fall down the curve.
Again, it’s not about medals.
If a team isn’t winning all the time then that’s fair enough, but like Man Utd in the post Ferguson era, the standards and the culture shouldn’t have to drop.
There is a peace in losing — not this crack of getting it right for a time then losing sight of what you’re about and losing your way.
Derry and Armagh are on the way up but I think they’ll both hit a wee bump in the road tomorrow.
Derry are away to Clare and Armagh go to Mayo.
I think it might be a case of both teams coming up the road pointless.
Elsewhere, I honestly think Dublin will lose to Kildare and Kerry will have more than enough for Monaghan.