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 8 September 2004 Irish Examiner - Arena Magazine | |||
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It's the most important 70 minutes in a player's career. But for the backroom teams tending the needs of Cork and Kilkenny, the day begins a lot earlier. Michael Moynihan explains.
Welcome to the world of the GAA inter-county backroom staff, where responsibilities can vary from keeping track of 80 or 90 sliotars at a week's worth of training sessions to filling the ice-baths for players after training. Cork's Jim McEvoy is officially designated as team masseur, but the title only hints at the range of his duties.
"Jim is a masseur but he also organises the kit and makes sure the players have fruit and water after training," says Cork manager Donal O'Grady. "The tradition in GAA dressing rooms always was that the jerseys were flung on the floor after a game, and I wasn't happy with that. Jim lays out training tops with the players' names on them before a session, just like a professional soccer or rugby team, and the team hang up their jerseys for collection afterwards."
"I was friendly with Sean Og Ó hAilpin," recalls McEvoy. "In 2000, I got involved with the footballers and then in 2001 I joined the hurlers."
McEvoy worked with both Ger Hartmann in Limerick and the Teddington clinic in England, where the likes of Kelly Holmes and other top athletes have been treated. His brief with Cork is a little broader. "We take as much pressure as we can off Donal," says McEvoy. "We organise everything off the pitch for him. When he arrives for training, the hurleys, sliotars and cones are all out on the pitch and ready.
"Donal is very meticulous. If the team meeting on the day of the match is at 1.30pm then everyone will be there at 1.25; if the bus is supposed to leave at 2pm, it'll leave at 2 even if everyone's on the bus at 1.55 it won't leave until 2. Every minute is organised, everything is ready.
"When the team arrives, they'll know what dressing room they're going to and so on. There's no element of surprise for the players at any stage all they have to think about is the match they're going to play."
However, the team has to practise first, and that's where the good habits begin. Training begins officially at 7pm, but McEvoy arrives at Páirc Ui Chaoimh two hours before and may still be in the stadium at 10pm: "Diarmuid O'Sullivan is always the first to arrive at 5.30, without fail, and he'll go to the place in the dressing room he's sat in for the last few years.
Donal Óg is always second and they both get a rub there are two masseurs and a physio there for them. The players start training at seven so everyone's in the dressing room by 6.30.
"There's a great atmosphere in training we always have a stereo in the dressing room, though not before matches. I'm in charge of the music; sometimes there's a few complaints about my selections!"
The panellists are catered for afterwards: "The ice baths after a session are a big part of training," says McEvoy. "We have to get those ready as well. After training, the players have to have fruit, like a banana, but the ice baths are the best ever. There was a lot of screaming and shouting about them at the start but they're used to it now. They have to get in and out of the ice bath three times in two minutes, 30 seconds at a time, before a hot shower. They all have to do it no excuses, no exceptions."
All things considered, preparing the team requires "a huge logistical effort", says Donal O'Grady: "If Jim wasn't there, that work wouldn't be done. I was a selector in 1986 and there's no comparison between the set-up now and what it was 20 years ago. Jim pioneered this system and he comes up with very good ideas; he has more input than just being a masseur. He's a great liaison man for us with the players and he can also come to us with suggestions the players may have made, in addition to suggestions of his own.
Taking the show on the road requires an effort all its own: "On the Friday night before the final, we'll get our timetables," says McEvoy. "They'll outline when the team train leaves Kent Station, say 1.45, with the team arriving at the Burlington [hotel] at 5pm and getting mass at 5.30. There'll be a team video at nine and sandwiches at 10.15; they know what they're doing at all times."
McEvoy's route to Dublin is a little different. At 9am on Saturday morning, he and team trainer Jerry Wallace will head for Dublin, aiming to be at the Burlington by 1pm. They'll be driving the team kit van "an invaluable resource for us this year," according to Donal O'Grady. "We'll get the team room set up in the hotel," says McEvoy. "We'll put in a TV and video, make sure the air-conditioning is right.
The players room by number number one rooms with number two, three with four and so on.
"The night before, some players go to the cinema, some come to the team room for a video, while others might stay in their rooms and watch TV. There isn't a set routine the lads are mature, they've been there before and they know what to do."
On the morning of the game, McEvoy and Wallace drive the kit van to Croke Park early to get the Cork dressing room ready. "We know what's involved. Last year, we went up before the Wexford game but Croke Park's an amazing stadium, every time you go up it's different. Next time we play there Hill 16 will be full, for example, so you have to keep all those things in mind." Still, it's a long day: "After the game, everyone else is on to the train for a beer, but we have to get the gear back in the van.
Incidentally, the Cork panel may be back in Dublin quicker than they think after the All-Ireland final. "I'm running the Dublin marathon in October," says McEvoy. "I fell in with the lads for pre-season training and it was a good laugh. At the start, they didn't believe I was going to do it but now they're going to be in Dublin for October 25. I'll be running for the leukaemia ward at the Mercy Hospital and the children's ward at CUH."
When he's not sorting out the kit, McEvoy has to find time to give the players a rub: "Two weeks before a game, we'll give a lot of deep rubs, but on the day of a game it's of psychological benefit, really." It's not the only positive boost the team can expect in the run-up to the game: "The bishop usually calls down the week before the All-Ireland final; last year he told us what the players had done was better than any medicine, which brings it home to the lads.
"They're the soundest bunch of guys you could come across. They know everything about each other and if one was in trouble, the others would help him out. Brian Corcoran came back after two years and the lads respect him so much that he was given his old spot back in the Pairc Ui Chaoimh dressing room.
"They know they have the best of everything and they respond. People don't realise the sacrifices they make. It's grand training now, in the bright nights, but it's different in January, when you're running around in the cold and rain.
McEvoy pays ample tribute to the other members of the backroom team: "All on 24-hour call for the lads if they need us" men like Sean McGrath, Chris O'Donovan, Declan O'Sullivan and Jerry Wallace. All of them are as focused as the players when it comes to the ultimate goal. "It's great to be involved, you're in a queue somewhere and you hear people talking about the game. There's no point in having a winter like we had last year, you don't want to be saying we should have done this or that.
"It's all about coming around Paddy Barry's corner on the Monday night after the All-Ireland, and money can't buy that. Our attitude in the backroom team is that whatever it takes, we'll do it."
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