Kingdom must not get rid of old heads
Experience vital to help youngsters seeking to survive at senior level
IT IS true that youth is wasted on the young. I have a way to go before I am ready for the nursing home, but even before I had hung up my intercounty boots I found myself looking back with regret rather than envy at the player I started out as.
found myself wishing that if only I could go back to a time when I was fleeter of foot but slower of mind how much better I could have been. Experience is a word that we just throw out there without ever really putting a measuring tape as to its actual worth.
I know that this is keeping it close to the family but if you ever wanted to see just how priceless an attribute experience is then I would suggest you hit the TG4 media player and watch Tomás playing for Nemo in last weekend’s All-Ireland club semi-final win over Slaughtneil.
Fergal, Darragh and I have been knocking a bit of craic out of Tomás over the last couple of years for turning his back on that ‘one life, one club’ motto, but truth be told his decision to join Nemo was a great choice in more ways than one
Nemo are a thinking man’s club, which I suppose, is the legacy of having a man like Billy Morgan as Godfather.
Down through the years you could tell a Nemo team out on the field, even if they were dressed in pink tutus rather than their famed black and green shirts. They know how to get the best out of what they have, which is why Tomás, four months shy of his 40th birthday, is thriving and set to play in yet another All-Ireland final this month.
Of course, I am proud of him but there is a huge part of me that wishes he was still togging with his own and, if he had, then I am absolutely convinced that Gaeltacht would have won this year’s All-Ireland intermediate title.
But that’s the thing with experience, it is not just enough to possess it but you must also be playing in an environment where others know how to employ it. The truth is that one of the reasons that made it easy for Tomás to join Nemo was that at home with us he was still being asked to do the same old job that his legs were simply no longer up to.
He was still being asked to mark the fastest and most dangerous forward that the opposition possessed and slowly it bled his game of enjoyment and confidence because he no longer had that capability, but he was more than able to excel in a different role.
Watch him playing for Nemo and he is never left in an isolated defensive position where his legs are exposed, while on the front-foot he picks and chooses his moments to drive forward.
He has modified his game to the changes in his body and because of that the class he always possessed still oozes. I mention this because there is an ageist football culture now in play where we can’t bury players north of 30 half quick enough.
I see that in my own county, where the clamour to rid the county panel of established players to make way for all that young talent coming through has been deafening.
The last couple of weeks, especially last weekend when a Kerry defence low on experience coughed up five clear goal chances to a Galway team not renowned for its creativity, served as a reminder that the learning curve at the highest level can be so sharp that it can cut you to the bone.
I know that from experience. The memory of my first All-Ireland final in 2002 still sends a shudder through me. I was part of a full-back line that got taken for nine points, but there was still no comfort for me in the knowledge that Seamus Moynihan and Michael McCarthy struggled that day too.
I was 35 when I played in my last All-Ireland final in 2015, I was two and a quarter stone heavier in my fighting weight than I was back in 2002 and may well have been two and a quarter yards slower as well. But here’s the thing, I was two and a quarter times a better corner-back at the end than I was at the beginning.
It is a horrible feeling to drown in full view of 80,000 people in an All-Ireland final, to not have the instinct to know what to do next while being buffeted around Croke Park by Diarmuid Marsden.
I don’t beat myself up about it anymore because I know that is what happens when you don’t have that deposit of experience to draw on.
That experience comes packaged in making decisions that seem so ordinary that they might appear inconsequential but often it is the difference between winning and losing.
Like when is the right time to press so tight that you get your hand on an opponent to stop his run before it even starts, or maybe when you are on the left wing and the ball is coming down the right, when is the right time to peel away from your man and cover the house.
There is no right answer to any of those but when you are comfortable in your skin as a player you are not even asking the question.
And that is why in Kerry, those who are seeking wholesale change to the team should be careful what they wish for. I am not saying that the likes of Sean O’Shea, David Clifford, Jason Foley, Brian Ó Beaglaoich, Tom O’Sullivan or Gavin Crowley are not good enough to make it – some of those guys are so talented that is not even a question – but if you bring them all in at once, they and the whole team drown.
I don’t think people fully appreciate the role that the likes of Aidan O’Mahony filled in his twilight years, his experience a comfort blanket for all those around him. Take that away and you are left with a bunch of shivering kids in desperate need of leadership that is not there
That is why in Kerry, the transition will have to be managed carefully because experience is a commodity that should be treasured, once you know how to use it.