TOP JOB WASN’T TO BE – BUT I’VE STILL A LOT OF WORK TO DO
Pundit, official, coach, visionary – Liam Sheedy is immersed in a GAA world he loves to its core
IT’S rare that a television analyst patrols a sideline on a Championship weekend and then ends up critiquing the day’s hurling action on The Sunday Game couch. Liam Sheedy is a man of many hats. RTé pundit, Tipperary’s 2010 AllIreland winning manager can be found these days hollering encouragement to the Antrim senior team during the Joe McDonagh Cup as a consultant coach.
This afternoon, his heart will be with his native county as Tipperary travel to the Gaelic Grounds as the first shots are fired in the novel round-robin Munster Hurling Championship.
As someone who chaired the Hurling 2020 committee and did the official speaking duties on last November’s AllStar tour, Sheedy’s vision for the GAA also put him in the frame for the top job: director general. When the list of candidates was whittled down to a short-list of three, his name was there alongside then finance director for Croke Park, Tom Ryan, and former president Liam O’Neill.
Looking back, he talks about coming so close to landing one of the most important positions in Irish sport, and what the biggest challenge is facing the association. Before, of course, giving his own take on the bloodand-thunder clash expected in Limerick.
‘The GAA is in my blood,’ he says. ‘I love the association and I love everything about it, so I felt I could have brought something to the table. So I put my name in the ring and I got down to the final three. In any process, you win some, you lose some. My mother died about two years ago. I had a word with her up there and said, “Look, if it’s for me, get it and if it’s not then, let it off.”
‘So it wasn’t meant to be. I have a very good outlook on life, I’m still a GAA person to the core, I enjoy standing on the sideline with Antrim, I’m doing a bit with my own camogie [teams] at home and I’m doing a bit with my Under 21s in Portroe.’
He pinpoints the alarming drop-off rate in Gaelic games, particularly during the transition from juvenile to adult competition, as one major area for concern. ‘I think everybody knows the challenges – knowing the challenges and solving the challenges are two very different things. For me the figure that six out of 10 kids that play our games are gone by 21, that’s the one that I would really love to have got my arms around because I think it is all about participation. I participated in the game and because I participated in the game I went back in as a coach and I’ve done a bit of administration.’
The statistics highlighted in a previous Economic and Social Research Institute report on that very issue of dropout painted a stark picture. ‘It’s heading in the wrong direction. We have great numbers at Cúl Camps but ultimately if you don’t bring the player through… I think that’s our greatest challenge. ‘Our 2040 plan is there in terms of where the houses are going to be built. We’ve fabulous facilities around the country but unless you have the people... ‘There is no magic silver bullet here. There’s a load of things need to be worked on. Ultimately, making sure your coaching structures across all clubs are right. I’ve seen the Cuala strategic plan, I’d be hugely impressed. Laois have a strategic plan. Look at a place like Slaughtneil. We need to see what are the best clubs and the best counties doing and make sure that is replicated. What we have is inconsistencies and you can’t afford to have them.
‘It’s in everyone’s interest that the game goes from strength to strength. I would like to wish Tom the best of luck. He’s a guy I sat around a table with for three years. He’s a really good guy. A really good GAA man. Ultimately, all anyone of us wants is that the GAA goes from strength to strength because it does have challenges.’
As for the challenge facing Tipperary and his good friend and former selector Michael Ryan, he bemoans the brittle nature of the county’s two Allianz Hurling League defeats to Kilkenny at Nowlan Park, in round four and in the final. ‘Definitely it was a missed opportunity; we haven’t won in Nowlan Park since 2008. I thought it was an opportunity to build character, both in the round robin and in the League final, and we didn’t take the opportunity.
‘Ultimately, the longer they stay in the Championship [the better they’ll get]. I think if Tipp get to a stage where they’re into the middle of July and are facing a Galway or a Wexford or anybody of that calibre and they have their full team, I think Mick Ryan will be happy to take on any of them. It’s just for those early rounds, until he gets his team settled, because right now Alan Flynn is probably the only player that has stood up over the course of the League and he probably would have liked to have seen two or three more.’
Deciding on a settled spine for the team, he says, is vital. ‘If you look at Kilkenny you know you’ve got Pádraig Walsh fullback, you’ve Cillian Buckley centre-back, you’ve got TJ Reid centre-forward – so they know the spine of their team. There have been a lot of changes in Tipperary, full-back, goals, but if Mick gets players on the pitch in the positions where they operate best I think everybody would agree that Tipp are serious contenders in 2018.’
So how did he end up on the sideline with Antrim this season? A meeting with Terence ‘Sambo’ McNaughton set the wheels in motion. ‘I’ll be honest, there was a minor match on last year, Tipp and Cork, and Sambo said he wanted to meet me. He brought his management team with him and he said, “Look, Liam, we’re struggling and we’re trying to give it one more lash and see can we get a bit of morale going again.” ‘I suppose I was very honest with him in terms of the time I could give, but I said “Listen, if I can give you something twice a month then I’m happy to do so.” Sambo was with me in the Hurling 2020 Committee and was very helpful to me in that committee. So I said if I could give him something back. So I get up there twice a month, I love being in the middle of them. They are very committed, there are still one or two more I would have liked to have come in that wouldn’t commit. That’s something I wouldn’t be used to in Tipp but it’s something I’ve had to get used to in Antrim. But for the lads that have gone in and the effort they’ve put in, they’ve been great.’ If there is one change he’d like to see in hurling, it’s that a penalty shoot-out replaces the soulless free-taking competition from the 65-metre line that is now used to ensure play-off matches in the League that finish level are finished on the day. It’s also in place for the preliminary All-Ireland quarter-finals. ‘Without a shadow of a doubt. It’s nearly an anti-climax. I like the excitement of the penalties. Even for people at the game – people watching probably don’t sense that – I think we should revert to the penalty shootout. It would be brilliant. If you ask most people, they’d rather the penalties than the 65s. If that’s the case we shouldn’t stand back, we shouldn’t fear anything.’
I wish Tom luck. It’s in everyone’s interest that the game goes from strength to strength