Kieran McGeeney admits there was a tinge of jealousy, earlier this year, when he beheld the specially constructed coaches’ box [with tinted windows] that kept Davy Fitzgerald cosy during Wexford’s semi final victory over Kilkenny.
The Wexford hurling boss had found a handy way of watching his players in action – during his eight-week ban – without directly influencing events on the pitch.
McGeeney was hit with a lengthier, 12-week ban this summer but returned to the sidelines in time for his team’s championship matches against Kildare and Tyrone.
McGeeney says Armagh looked into getting a similar box at the Athletic Grounds but they could not it sorted in time.
“It’s a far better place to be,” he told The GAA Hour, “because from your position on the sideline, you can actually see frig all. It’s the worst position to watch a match from.
“It definitely is because everything you see beside is almost multiplied three-fold. If someone makes two mistakes beside you, it’s like, ‘That’s it, he’s coming off. He’s getting the curly finger’. And some lad of the other side of the pitch might have made five or six mistakes.”
McGeeney is not the only inter-county manager who now has an increased backroom staff. “You have people in the stands,” he says. “They’re in your ear and they have these stats coming back.”
He firmly believes that a higher, distanced vantage point helps with his tactics and decision-making process. There is an added bonus to escaping the sidelines, too. He comments:
“The way the stadiums are set up now, you’re actually in the middle of the crowd, so you have John Joe Murphy from down the road telling you that you’re a f**king idiot, or saying, ‘What are you doing putting that boy on?’“
Every GAA manager – club, county or college – will emphatise with McGeeney on that one.
The solution may be Jim Gavin’s stance or rarely moving from his front row seat on the Dublin bench. Try selling that one to GAA coaches that simply need to be close enough to the action that they can reach out and physically touch it.
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