Eamonn Sweeney

Culture
41

Disagree. In fairness i think its obvious i have good insight into this and its going too far.

Dublin can push it as they can look after their players very well.

S&C isn’t the problem either despite what some say. Its mostly managers in certaim counties. Some counties have the balance but not all.

What alot of people don’t realise is it is the structures of games and length of year is the issue. Uneducated managers then also feel they need to train more than you need. In-season anymore than 2 sessions a week is detrimental to performance. Even professional sports teams rarely do more than 2 proper sessions a week.
Most sports have pre-seasons, GAA doesn’t. The year doesn’t flow.

External life is far too demanding now as well. The whole thing needs to be torn up and started afresh. This piecemeal approach is a waste of time.

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42

Skill levels are vastly improved. I didagree with that. People mix up tactics with skills alot.

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43

As has been said, its mostly weaker counties who have nothibg to play for where lads are aaying fuck it.

They need another grade, but this div4 idea is bull shit. Another stop gap idea that will fail. Needs to be bottom 16 teams.

A couple of managers expressing the provincials as a waste of time was no harm either.

44

Many of us on here had McGeeney’s number a long time ago. It took some other johnny come latelys a little longer.

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I agree with all that. A lot of managers now see themselves as more important than the team. The problem is though that while counties who are doing the intensive training, (Dublin , Donegal etc) are being successful then there is absolutely no motivation for other managers to cut back on training.

As you know well yourself, if a manager decides to take a more “relaxed” (for want of a better word) approach to training, he’s basically signing his own death warrant, because you’ll have all the auld lads on the CB waiting to jump on his back as soon as they lose a game.

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46

Get ta fuck

47

Wtf???

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48

Ya and the players themselves are just as bad. I have had to develop clever ways to make players “tired” at the end of sessions (usually some high intensity football game) to disguise the layered approach to the conditioning. So many players still think it they are not near puking at some stage then they are not training.

McGuinness, through fault of his own, is responsible in alot of ways. What the idiots up and down the country forget though is he had;
McGlynn - a machine
McGees x2 - Made for IC football, excellent and intelkigent footballers
Murphy - takes 2 people out of the game most of the time
McFadden - Brilliant when he wants to be
Gallagher - Perfect modern midfielder

Etc.

They don’t look at what they have and try to create a team like Donegal when they footballers like Leitrim.

I helped out a mate yesterday do the testing on a team he is with. Was talking to the coach and was delighted with his approach and the questions he asked. He wanted to know based on what we were seeing athletically where players were best suited to. No coach ever asked me that before. You have managers all over the place making fast twitch machines who should be corner forward running all over the field playing as a sweeper or extra man when they don’t have the engine for it. Crazy carry on. And all it takes is a bit of logic.

UCC have the simplest and ckeverest system i have seen. I know the background to it so maybe that makes it easier to see. But its simple. And the players control everything. If they think for a period they need a sweeper they don’t change much just the centre back drops in the hole and a midfielder drops centre and so on. Their manyra is when we have the ball we’re all attackers, when we don’t everyone is a defender. They do a little bit of speed work but NO conditioning and have been in 3 or 4 Sigerson finals in a row.
You have all those apes up north on 3 month S&C programs and all sorts of foolishness.

I played a sweeper last year with a team, simply because our full back line was Junior standard and we had to protect them. We also had the perfect intelligent ball playing man for the job. It has to be needs must at club level and for most at County level too.

Learn how to tackle, pass, , shoot, defend as a team, attack as a team, kick, run technically better, lift a few weights. Its very simple. Repeat repeat repeat and just add a little variatiin as you go.

3 Likes
49

In your opinion Kev. Can a team get to championship pace without the slog in the winter?
Taking into account that all the other teams will be doing the slog and you can’t be useless in the league or you’ll probably get the sack?
Is it feasible to do it another way realistically?

50

Absolutely. I’ve done it.use the ball all the time, every session.

Key is the Manager/Coach needs to be on board.

Yes you have to train hard, not saying that you don’t, but that really hard slog training brings teams to high lactate fatigue all the time. So they are not actually doing much for the aerobic system which is the most important energy system in field sport. So they are not aerobically efficient. What happens is they are;

  • constantly fatigued so injury is a big issue.
  • They will be slow out of the blocks in games.
  • if teams get a run on them comfidence will drop, and that knocks on

They will proba ly finish strong, so for some this fools them into thinking its worth it or “we’ll get there” or the classic, “the warm up isn’t good enough”. Blame the warm up is always the first port of call for bad starts. However its usually the training been done.

So l ise an undulating method for everything, train everything all the time. Use it ir lose it is the case with most adpects of skill and fitness. Very simply in pre-season:

Mon - Aerobic capacity, kicking & general games
Thurs - Speed, tackling & defensive games
Sat - Aerobic Power, Ball Mastery and retaining possession & Attacking games.

What i’m lucky enough to do this year with 2 clubs is due to their facilities they can do a little bit of their strength training before and after those 3 sessions. So

Mon - Squat & Pull during & after training. Muscular endurance can be done body weight during training, and the more weight bearing strength work can be done after. Just 10 mins for each.

Thurs - Hip-Hinge & Push before training, they will have their activationstuff in doors and working up between 3-4 sets for reasonably heavy exercises. This has a knock on effect then on the sprint training which you do pretty quickly when put on the field. It is called potentiation which is where you awaken more of your muscles than a normal warm up would and tye idea is you sprint faster and teach your body to use more muscle than it usually did. It works. I introduced it at Perth and it went brilliantly until the coach fucked it and started adding stuff to the training which fatigued them. You really have to be experienced to do it.

Sat - Single leg/Lunge & Press. Very little, mostly on pitch, maybe 2-3 little circuits of around 3 mins.

Some people then can do another day in gym if they are keen or i really think they need it. However i do my very best to make this something with a band or something they can do at home.
Its just lucky and co-incidental i have access to good facilities in proximity of clubs this year. However the benefits of that are huge. Less time away from home, ball in play from day 1, easy to track & monitor, managers happy, expense saved for club, wives and girlfriends happier etc.

Obviously you adjust then after the games start. But once they start you only do important stuff. With GAA its weakness is also a strength. The fall off in games allows you the chance to go back to stage 1 again and make further improvements.

So with above system you are hoping to improve Monday to monday, thursday to thursday, saturday to saturday. If for example the tackling inproves in 3 weeks tou can make the drills and games harder then, but the kicking might take 6 weeks. Same for everything. You also don’t fatigue players that way.

4 Likes
51

But you’d still start in winter? What would you say is the optimal time to start training for a championship that starts in say April or whatever.

I always feel fellas are sick of it by the time it actually comes around.

I must get back going myself, need a bit of a head start this year as I finished up in September last year due to an injury that’s only coming right now. What would you recommend?

52

Fellas are sick of it cos there is not enough fun.

10-12 weeks prep is ideal, get away with 8. However league games theow a spanner in the works. Its county dependant then. Is there relegation in the league? How seriously is it taken? Does it affect championship groupsings etc?

But you can develop and train hard without having to sacrifice games.

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53

Strength straining first.

54

do you ever do piggybacks kev?
i.e. out to the 14 and back, out to the 21 and back. usually carry a fella of roughly the same weight

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55

You were still a good bit behind a few of us

56

Yes. Good for muscular endurance and strength and a bit of fun.

Similar effects to farmers walks and such things. Good indicator strength too.

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57

Wonderful stuff @caoimhaoin

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I have a vague recollection of schooling the poster @sidney_waddell on Kabbadi way back in the day

60

wonder what this gimp will say about his club appointing a war criminal as their manager

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