IT WAS DURING one slow weekend morning that Sean O’Sullivan learned that Aidan O’Shea was one serious man for detail.
The year was 2009, he and O’Shea were both coming back from injury to the Kerry senior setup. The rest of the squad were getting ready for a game under Pat O’Shea, but physical trainer John Sugrue was dispatched to the small pitch beside Fitzgerald Stadium to get something done with the injured duo.
“We were both coming back from hamstring injuries and John was doing a circuit with us,” recalls Cromane man O’Sullivan.
“And I just remember wanting to get in there and get it done as I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. But it was a relatively fresh spring morning and Aidan was constantly questioning John. Not in a bad way or trying to second guess John or undermine him, but he was genuinely curious and questioning things.
“He was the same with Mid-Kerry. He was one to keep an eye on.
“He always had a good head for the game and there was no surprise to me that he has gone on to be an excellent coach.”
With Mid-Kerry, the two got to win the Kerry championship the previous winter.
O’Shea’s goal from a late penalty in the final settled the replay against Kerins O’Rahilly’s.
With Jack O’Shea as his father, it was only natural that there was a lot expected of him, an ounce of breeding worth a ton of feeding and all that.
So in 2009, he played and started against Longford in the backdoor section, around about the time Kerry were stumbling through games, before they wiped out Dublin in the August Bank Holiday quarter-final.
“And that was the way that year until injury hit him. He was blighted with it,” says O’Sullivan.
“When he came out of the Kerry scene, playing with Glenbeigh-Glencar, I am not sure he played a whole pile of football after that because he was breaking down quite a lot.”
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Injuries meant the loss of what could have been, Belle and Sebastian style, a brilliant career, to osteitis pubis.
Instead of taking time away, O’Shea threw himself into a coaching career that has brought him success at colleges level with Mercy Mounthawk, where he is a teacher, with his club Glenbeigh-Glencar, and with the Kerry U20 team under Tomás Ó Sé.
It brings him to Croke Park now, as the coach of the Dingle side, having been recruited by manager Pádraig Corcoran. And his progression has been no surprise locally.
“Out of that 2008 county championship winning dressing room, if you asked me who would have put their head above the parapet to be a coach, Aidan O’Shea would have jumped out at me, 100%,” insists O’Sullivan.
“First of all, his attention to detail as a player himself. He was an incredible athlete. But his attention to detail when it came to his body, his gym, his strength and conditioning side of things, his speed.
“When we weren’t on the pitch ourselves, he would have been arranging to go on the field and get in some extra sessions with the ball. Just really, really looked after himself.”
“He was nearly one of these guys who was ahead of the game when it came to new innovations. When it came to stuff in the gym, stuff on the pitch.
“For instance; he would have been very much into reading up and educating himself on the newest and latest innovations when it came to training in the gym and weights.
“I am a few years older than Aidan. I would have come from the John O’Keeffe school of thought when you get into an old-school gym over the winter and you did your basics, your bench presses and squats and went down that road.
“Whereas Aidan would have been into resistance training, resistance bands. He would have been foam rolling. You would have been looking at him and wondering what he was coming with tonight.
Sean O'Sullivan playing for Kerry. Billy Stickland / INPHO
Billy Stickland / INPHO / INPHO
“On the other side of that, Aidan unfortunately had a lot of injury problems and you could see why he was always looking at alternative types of training, that maybe because of the injuries he was having, was restricting him in terms of the training that he could do, the heavy lifting in the gym.”
O’Shea won’t be the only ‘outsider’ on the line in the management teams on Sunday in Croke Park.
Not that St Brigid’s need to lean back on the experience of losing a decider, but they have Evan Talty as team trainer, who also lost an All-Ireland senior final for Kilmurry-Ibrickane to St Gall’s in 2010.
Talty is the founder of iGaeliccoach.ie, and is a main driver of Wild Irish Seaweeds, a company that harvest seaweed along the Clare coast for medicinal and nutritional purposes.
Michael McDermott was manager of Kilmurry-Ibrickane on that unexpected run.
Michael McDermott. Tom Maher / INPHO
Tom Maher / INPHO / INPHO
“My lasting memory of Evan as a footballer, the year we won (Munster) in 2009, he kicked the winning point in the Munster final against a red-hot Kerins O’Rahilly’s team that year.
“It was the last kick of the game, got an opportunity with a quick kickout and nailed the opportunity. That was his claim to fame.”
When you’ve gone everywhere in the game like McDermott has, from Clare county footballers to Ramor in Cavan where he is from and so many places in between, you get to know people and you stay on top of the chatter.
“Micheál Cahill, who is one of the Limerick senior football coaches, he would have been my strength and conditioning coach in 2010, when Micheál would have been very young, about 24 or so,” he explains.
“And Micheál told me that Evan Talty was involved with him this year and last year as well in Limerick. He remembered him from playing with Kilmurry-Ibrickane and Micheál had said to me that this guy was a really, really good coach.
“Great ideas, very much thinking outside the box.”
Evan Talty (right) with Michael Hogan celebrating the Kilmurry-Ibrickane Munster title of 2009. Lorraine O'Sullivan / INPHO
Lorraine O'Sullivan / INPHO / INPHO
Alongside Talty is Owen Mooney.
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Originally from Lisnaskea in Fermanagh, he cut his coaching teeth with the Ulster Council as a youth coach before progressing up the ladder and currently works within Dublin GAA.
He has been a close coaching confidant of Shane ‘Cake’ Curran.
Mooney met his wife Ciara in America and they settled back in Roscommon. She is the lead physio for the team and while his profile may not be on a national level yet, he is well thought of.
“He’s top class. Great lad. We had three or four years together, great years and he has had great success,” says Curran.
“He’s an on-pitch coach. He gets on well with the players, he might spot a weakness in a player and very good on the pitch, very good around people and a good relationship driver.
“For me, what would stand out for him is he is very detailed. He’s extremely well-organised. He gets on very well with people, is very personable, which I think is very important.
“He’s supportive and hugely empathetic towards players which I think is great. He has that kind of personality that draws people in and he is a good sounding board for players, where they might improve and so on. I think really that is his forte.”
St Brigid’s and Dingle may be headed up by familiar faces in Anthony Cunningham and Pádraig Corcoran, but they bring serious back-up.
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'He is very detailed' - Outside coaches pushing on All-Ireland finalists St Brigid's and Dingle
IT WAS DURING one slow weekend morning that Sean O’Sullivan learned that Aidan O’Shea was one serious man for detail.
The year was 2009, he and O’Shea were both coming back from injury to the Kerry senior setup. The rest of the squad were getting ready for a game under Pat O’Shea, but physical trainer John Sugrue was dispatched to the small pitch beside Fitzgerald Stadium to get something done with the injured duo.
“We were both coming back from hamstring injuries and John was doing a circuit with us,” recalls Cromane man O’Sullivan.
“He was the same with Mid-Kerry. He was one to keep an eye on.
“He always had a good head for the game and there was no surprise to me that he has gone on to be an excellent coach.”
With Mid-Kerry, the two got to win the Kerry championship the previous winter.
O’Shea’s goal from a late penalty in the final settled the replay against Kerins O’Rahilly’s.
With Jack O’Shea as his father, it was only natural that there was a lot expected of him, an ounce of breeding worth a ton of feeding and all that.
So in 2009, he played and started against Longford in the backdoor section, around about the time Kerry were stumbling through games, before they wiped out Dublin in the August Bank Holiday quarter-final.
“And that was the way that year until injury hit him. He was blighted with it,” says O’Sullivan.
“When he came out of the Kerry scene, playing with Glenbeigh-Glencar, I am not sure he played a whole pile of football after that because he was breaking down quite a lot.”
Injuries meant the loss of what could have been, Belle and Sebastian style, a brilliant career, to osteitis pubis.
Instead of taking time away, O’Shea threw himself into a coaching career that has brought him success at colleges level with Mercy Mounthawk, where he is a teacher, with his club Glenbeigh-Glencar, and with the Kerry U20 team under Tomás Ó Sé.
It brings him to Croke Park now, as the coach of the Dingle side, having been recruited by manager Pádraig Corcoran. And his progression has been no surprise locally.
“Out of that 2008 county championship winning dressing room, if you asked me who would have put their head above the parapet to be a coach, Aidan O’Shea would have jumped out at me, 100%,” insists O’Sullivan.
“First of all, his attention to detail as a player himself. He was an incredible athlete. But his attention to detail when it came to his body, his gym, his strength and conditioning side of things, his speed.
“When we weren’t on the pitch ourselves, he would have been arranging to go on the field and get in some extra sessions with the ball. Just really, really looked after himself.”
“He was nearly one of these guys who was ahead of the game when it came to new innovations. When it came to stuff in the gym, stuff on the pitch.
“For instance; he would have been very much into reading up and educating himself on the newest and latest innovations when it came to training in the gym and weights.
“I am a few years older than Aidan. I would have come from the John O’Keeffe school of thought when you get into an old-school gym over the winter and you did your basics, your bench presses and squats and went down that road.
“Whereas Aidan would have been into resistance training, resistance bands. He would have been foam rolling. You would have been looking at him and wondering what he was coming with tonight.
“On the other side of that, Aidan unfortunately had a lot of injury problems and you could see why he was always looking at alternative types of training, that maybe because of the injuries he was having, was restricting him in terms of the training that he could do, the heavy lifting in the gym.”
O’Shea won’t be the only ‘outsider’ on the line in the management teams on Sunday in Croke Park.
Not that St Brigid’s need to lean back on the experience of losing a decider, but they have Evan Talty as team trainer, who also lost an All-Ireland senior final for Kilmurry-Ibrickane to St Gall’s in 2010.
Talty is the founder of iGaeliccoach.ie, and is a main driver of Wild Irish Seaweeds, a company that harvest seaweed along the Clare coast for medicinal and nutritional purposes.
Michael McDermott was manager of Kilmurry-Ibrickane on that unexpected run.
“My lasting memory of Evan as a footballer, the year we won (Munster) in 2009, he kicked the winning point in the Munster final against a red-hot Kerins O’Rahilly’s team that year.
“It was the last kick of the game, got an opportunity with a quick kickout and nailed the opportunity. That was his claim to fame.”
When you’ve gone everywhere in the game like McDermott has, from Clare county footballers to Ramor in Cavan where he is from and so many places in between, you get to know people and you stay on top of the chatter.
“Micheál Cahill, who is one of the Limerick senior football coaches, he would have been my strength and conditioning coach in 2010, when Micheál would have been very young, about 24 or so,” he explains.
“And Micheál told me that Evan Talty was involved with him this year and last year as well in Limerick. He remembered him from playing with Kilmurry-Ibrickane and Micheál had said to me that this guy was a really, really good coach.
“Great ideas, very much thinking outside the box.”
Alongside Talty is Owen Mooney.
Originally from Lisnaskea in Fermanagh, he cut his coaching teeth with the Ulster Council as a youth coach before progressing up the ladder and currently works within Dublin GAA.
He has been a close coaching confidant of Shane ‘Cake’ Curran.
Mooney met his wife Ciara in America and they settled back in Roscommon. She is the lead physio for the team and while his profile may not be on a national level yet, he is well thought of.
“He’s top class. Great lad. We had three or four years together, great years and he has had great success,” says Curran.
“He’s an on-pitch coach. He gets on well with the players, he might spot a weakness in a player and very good on the pitch, very good around people and a good relationship driver.
“For me, what would stand out for him is he is very detailed. He’s extremely well-organised. He gets on very well with people, is very personable, which I think is very important.
“He’s supportive and hugely empathetic towards players which I think is great. He has that kind of personality that draws people in and he is a good sounding board for players, where they might improve and so on. I think really that is his forte.”
St Brigid’s and Dingle may be headed up by familiar faces in Anthony Cunningham and Pádraig Corcoran, but they bring serious back-up.
*****
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