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You are > Home > Looking for the extra dimension to bring success
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Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Looking for the extra dimension to bring success
BY ANTHONY HENNIGAN
IT’S WITH hopes of All-Ireland glory that Mayo GAA Board has launched a pioneering programme it believes will create an environment that enables the best possible physical development of 100 of the county’s most promising underage Gaelic footballers.
In conjunction with Des Ryan, the Irish Rugby’s fitness education manager, Mayo Coaching and Games Committee has developed a highly scientific training programme that seeks to improve the function, speed, strength and power in younger players. It’s believed only underage inter-county hurlers in Tipperary have been introduced to something as technically similar.
The Mayo GAA Underage Development Programme follows all the proper principals of training explains County Games Manager, Billy McNicholas.
“With the use of video technology, the players will be screened by qualified strength and conditioners to assess their mobility and stability, their training history and injury history too. Any functional compensation will be corrected in the training programme provided to the player,” says Billy.
Mayo minor manager Tony Duffy, Ballaghaderreen’s James Mitchell and Paul Ginty of Bonniconlon are to supervise the implementation of the programme where players will learn the principals behind their physical development and focus on correct training techniques.
“It is an excellent step forward for Mayo football and a healthy development for young players that will help prevent injuries and improve performance,” believes Billy McNicholas.
“What we’re looking at is best practise for our players. We work heavily on the skill development and team play with them but up until now we relied on the players themselves to look after their strength and conditioning programme. From now however, our players will be monitored every three weeks to make sure they’re doing their exercises properly and that the exercises are working for them.”
Welcoming the launch of the programme, County Coaching Officer Hugh Rudden said that although Mayo continues to produce some of the best players in the country, it still seeks that something extra that might take its teams “over the hill on All-Ireland day”.
“It’s a far cry from the strength and conditioning in my day when you think back to the piggy backs and wheelbarrow races,” laughed Hugh.
“I had an uncle who played for Cavan against Kerry down in Tralee in 1933 and there was a doctor playing on him who asked, “How do you put up such muscle?” and he said, “Raring on a Big McMahon”.”
Hugh Rudden explained to the dozens of 15 and 16-year-old budding Mayo footballers present that the Big McMahon was a spade once made in Monaghan.
“If you were digging with that for a few weeks around the 1930s and 40s you wouldn’t need a strength and conditioning programme,” he joked.
“The spade and the hayfork were the strength and conditioning that people did in those days.”
Thankfully, huge advances have been made in the area of training and preparation of footballers and the screening of players from last year’s U15 and U-16 Mayo Academy squads will take place in McHale Park next Saturday.
“I actually think the game at the moment is far superior to when we played it in the 1970s and 1980s and part of that is because we have real athletes playing at the moment, athletes who are far superior to those of my time,” commented John Tobin, the GAA’s Director of Coaching in Connacht.
“The bar is rising all the time and we’re trying to stay ahead of that standard, we’re always looking for the extra dimension and we hope that this programme will contribute,” added the Galway football legend.
“It’s not by accident that Connacht and Mayo in particular has produced the underage teams that it has over the last number of years. It just didn’t happen. There was so much work put in by so many in developing and nurturing the talent and we want to continue that tradition.”
Mayo senior football manager John O’Mahony also urged the Academy players to embrace the strength and conditioning programme but not to neglect the fundamentals of the game. After all, it’s for their raw talent and ability that the players first came to the attention of the county coaches.
“What you’re being provided is the science of how you develop as a player in the coming years. It’s a wonderful opportunity but it’s not the be all and end all, you have to develop your skills too. Don’t forget the basic ambition and commitment to what you need to do,” he advised.
“You’ll all be wondering can or will you make it as a Mayo footballer and some of you somewhere along the way might not make an under 16 or a minor team and will think to yourself that that’s you finished. But some of the best people that ever got through are players that had to work harder because they didn’t make the initial squads. They showed their determination to prove everybody wrong.”
Speaking after Des Ryan’s entertaining and informative presentation of just what the strength and conditioning plan entails and demands, and about what improvements in performance can be expected of its participants, former Mayo footballer James Mitchell revealed what fuels his involvement as co-ordinator is that the programme is as much about the prevention of injuries as it is the improvement in performance of players.
“I played in an All-Ireland U-21 final in 1995 when we were defeated by Kerry after a replay. I thought to myself that I was going to be in this for a long time but I finished playing football when I was 26 with a back injury.
“I had captained my county at U-16, minor and U-21 levels, and I played a small bit of inter-county senior football too but really, once I picked up the injury my career was finished,” Mitchell told the assembled players.
“It’s not there for ever boys, your football career doesn’t last that long, but there’s a brilliant programme being put in place and it’s a massive opportunity for you. You’ve got to take this chance and hopefully in a couple of years time we might be able to put our hands on the lucrative All-Ireland that we all chase,” he added.
Instead of just hoping that will happen, Mayo, it seems, is intent on making it happen.
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