Gaining insights into how it’s Dunne.
By Noel Dundon, Tipperary Media.
It’s the time of the year when most clubs are on the lookout for new coaches for the up-coming season. Whether those coaches/managers will be drawn from within the club’s own pool of talent, or whether outsiders will be tasked with taking the teams forward, the goals will still be the same- advance the cause of the team and see them develop towards capturing some silverware.
Coaches have all sorts of different outlooks on how the games should be played. And, they have all sorts of ideas on how teams should be prepared as well. So, it was particularly interesting to listen to world boxing champion Bernard Dunne as he shared his insights with the Tipperary U20 hurlers and their guests when they were presented with their Munster medals at the magnificently turned out Dome on Friday night.
Bernard had some really brilliant points to make and the fact that he spent a significant portion of his post-boxing days with the Jim Gavin-led Dublin senior football team really helped the players to buy-into what he was selling.
One of the really great insights he shared focused on the approach to training. Having mentioned that he has maintained a diary each day from the time he was fourteen years of age, he pointed out that reflecting on the diary at the end of each week was the real key to examining what was, and what was not, working for him in terms of his training, his diet and his general preparation.
The things that worked were kept on; the things that were not were jettisoned.
The approach to training has to be to treat each session like the real thing and he encouraged each of the 39 Tipperary players present to do the same. There is little point in taking the time to attend the training field, messing around doing things you will never do in a game, and failing to improve your teammates. In other words, the elite players ought to drive each other on by their relentless pursuit of excellence and this should be done by approaching the training sessions with an intensity and an honesty which will be more than required in the big moments of the big games.
If this is done, each player can then sit down before the big games, tick off all the elements on the list and derive confidence from knowing that absolutely everything has been done; no stone has been left unturned; and nothing further can be done to advance the cause.
Tellingly, Bernard Dunne also instructed the players and coaches to focus on the things they are good at and to force these elements on the opposition. All too often coaches and players focus on what they are not good at, and then spend so much time trying to make minor gains. However, the elite, successful players will focus on their strengths and use them to the maximum in pursuit of success.
It was a comment which struck a note especially when reflecting on the number of club teams and coaches across Tipperary who are trying to play a style of game which their players simply cannot carry off. Many coaches are obsessed with sweepers; restarting the play with corner backs; breaking the tackle; running off the shoulder; keeping possession, and a whole plethora of other similar tactics. But, how many teams are actually capable of doing that? How many players in each team can do it even? You see it creeping in at underage level and by the time it gets to adult grades, well, it’s pretty rampant.
Perhaps the great attribute a coach ought to possess is the ability to recognise the talent at their disposal and to adapt accordingly to help make that team the best it can possibly be. If that means winning the championship, so be it; if that means surviving in the grade, so be it too.
Normally medal presentation evenings are full of platitudes and back-slapping. But the appearance by Bernard Dunne and his contribution helped to elevate this particular function to a different level. In concluding, he told the players to always take time to reflect because it is only by doing so that they will recognise the gaps in their skillset and can go about closing those gaps – an approach as important in life as in sport.
The All-Stars.
The All-Stars have become so asinine in recent times that they do not deserve considered comment. Suffice to say it is all a shambles.