Nobody starts out playing football wanting to be the biggest or the strongest.
Any kid who picks up a ball dreams of Croke Park, not bench presses. They dream of kicking the ball over the bar or into the back of the net in an All-Ireland. They don’t dream of squats.
Alright, to get there, the physical training is obviously going to help. It’s probably essential. More important than those gym sessions though are practice with a football. That thing you use to play football.
Colin Kelly was a skillful corner forward in his day with Louth and it’s rubbing off on his team now. In a fascinating interview with Colm Parkinson on SportsJOE’s GAA Hour podcast, the Wee County’s manager said the words ‘skill set’ incessantly.
Kelly preaches intensity rather than physicality. Louth tore Laois a new one in the Division Three opener on Saturday but they won’t regroup until Wednesday. In their manager’s own words, they’re in ‘the business of keeping lads fresh’.
So, with the time they do get with the squad, they’re not going to waste it all in the gym.
“When we come in on Wednesday, what’s more important to us: the fitness or the skill set?” Kelly remarked on The GAA Hour of how Louth can improve in the current climate.
“Now, I don’t think there’s a huge difference in the skill sets [of every county]. Yeah, you have a couple of outstanding teams but I think they have outstanding footballers. I don’t think it’s just outstanding conditioning, they have the footballers and their mistakes are limited.
“If you drop down the divisions, there are more errors made so we concentrate on eradicating the errors from our game. We try to get our skill set up high. We have very skillful footballers – most of our lads would be good off either foot, good hands and we’d be quick and athletic.
“So we spend our time concentrating on those type of things. We have a brilliant strength and conditioner in Aaron Rodgers but most of his time is spent on recovery sessions and working on flexibility. We don’t actually get under barbells and dumbbells and try to get as big as we can.
“When we get to the field, we spend the time working on skill sets. If we have the lads three times a week, our three sessions are all ball-orientated and game plan-orientated.”
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Kelly maintains that dropping to Division Four last season has actually had a positive impact on his team. They’ve learned about winning all over again and now they’ve come up a grade and blasted one of the third tier’s favourites right out of the water on day one.
He says they haven’t changed a whole pile though and that there is no big secret – nothing anyone analysing them would learn anyway.
“The modern game is the modern game. It’s all about possession and it’s about attacking as one unit and defending as one unit. We’re just trying to work on the skills of the game,” he explained in no uncertain terms.
“All teams are looking at everyone else – there are DVDs flying about, live television – it’s different than what it was back when we were playing. We just work on our skills.
“We work on our tackling, we work on our shooting, we work on our kick passing, we work on our handling.
“We try to get as many back defending as we can and we try to get a high press on if it’s possible. We’re trying to encourage our attacks to start from the goalkeeper and we’re lucky that we have talented players that seem to be able to implement what we do.”
Of course, there are any number of coaches out there that would suffocate their sides without realising it. Micro managing every facet of every play is to choke a team to death but Kelly doesn’t have to do that.
His approach is a lot more relaxed. Work on the skills, and go out and play. It’s not some grand plan system that requires every member to be perfectly conditioned and functional and disciplined. It’s just football.
“You hear all the cliches going around: don’t give the ball away and retain possession. Can you not give it away and you aggressively attacking the opponents and trying to get into the opposition’s half? It’s easy to retain possession going backways,” he told The GAA Hour.
“If you drop players behind the ball, you have to support the play as quickly as you can because there’s no point in isolating guys inside up top on their own. It’s about looking at, first of all, the make up of your squad and their physical components, and then implementing a game plan to suit.
“We have boys who are slight in stature but big in heart.”
One good game hasn’t turned this into a success story all of a sudden. Kelly remembers too well only a few weeks ago when Dublin beat them in the O’Byrne Cup and, despite the possession, they ‘couldn’t buy a score’.
So he takes the rough with the smooth. As long as boys are enjoying themselves.
“First of all, we play to enjoy football,” the Louth manager said.
“Secondly, we play to win. When you start off playing at seven or eight or whatever it is, you don’t start off to win – you do it because you enjoy it. Then if we can win more games than we lose, let’s do it.
“But ultimately, to win, you need to have a high skill set and be able to kick the ball over the bar.
“We have no real set goals. We want to be the best we can be every Sunday and, if we win, we win.”
Listen to the full brilliant interview below. It’ll be the best thing you do today.
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