Frank Fitzsimons is a manager who has made progress since last year

Frank Fitzsimmons had an unproductive first year as manager/coach with Antrim and he’s become a better coach this year as his team have earned promotion to division three.

Kieran McGeeney, after the Cavan defeat, suggested culpability lay with him as he said, “I mustn’t be doing the right thing with them.” They have since been relegated but rest assured, Kieran will act swiftly and firmly to do the right things to have Armagh back on track.

Louis Van Gaal was forced to act by his senior players who had become shackled by a lack of Manchester United’s famed attacking play, while Brendan Rodgers is ready again for Premiership football after a period of reflection on how to do things better.

Here are a number of ways to enable you to become a better coach:

1. Learn and understand the rules
Simply knowing the rules is not enough – coaches need to grasp how each rule is applied in a practical sense. Otherwise you could be guilty of coaching ‘foul’ play and your team will be penalised unduly in games as a result. In time, your players will see you in an unfavourable light for not knowing the rules you coach. Until you learn and understand the rules, arrange for an official referee to be present at ‘in-house’ games.

2. Watch videos
Video analyse regularly on your own and then with players to help identify what your team does well and what needs to be improved.
Watch videos of opponents to allow you to better anticipate their strengths/weaknesses which enables you and your team to devise ways to negate their strengths as well exploit their weaknesses while repairing critical gaps in your own team’s strategies and abilities.

3. Find a mentor
Finding and establishing a firm relationship with a coaching mentor is a critical element of becoming a top tier coach in any sport. A mentor is someone who you greatly respect, who has values that align with your own and who make themselves accessible to you. Maybe that’s why Gearoid Adams and Aidan O’Rourke have joined the Antrim and Armagh management teams respectively.

4. Get feedback from other coaches
Any coach can grow and learn if you ask fellow coaches to appraise you regularly, ie, How effective is your coaching in their view? How well you communicate/teach players.
Other coaches see things that you can’t see about ourself. They are ‘outside looking in’ and will tell you you are too negative or too enabling; too intense or unfocused; or whether your strategy or technique need improving.

5. Attend clinics, camps and conferences
Too many coaches no longer attend these, yet these are the easiest way to make great coaching improvements in a short time. They will open up new thought processes and give you a whole new perspective on your sport’s game.

6. Learn new training drills, games and techniques
Modern technology gives huge access to new drills, games, etc, eg, ‘You Tube’. Your new knowledge you can quickly transfer to your training field. Your players will benefit much from viewing these online webinars.

7. Know your attacking, defensive, set piece systems
If you are only a skill coach, positional awareness specialist, even tactical coach, your team will suffer as you need most of all to know and understand the full scope, capabilities and objectives of our team’s entire game sense/plan systems – the big picture of how your team plays. Unless managers know that big picture, a coach’s work can be overlooked/ignored and the team plays as a team that doesn’t know what it’s doing.

8. Learn how to coach every position
As important as understanding their game plans. In Gaelic football, a brief summary of every position is – goalkeepers should be good shot stoppers, with player finding kick-outs, good communications and able to high catch under pressure. The full-backs should at least be good man-markers, able to field high balls in and be fast paced. The centre half back should be a great reader of the game, have a commanding presence blocking the middle. The centre-half forward has to be clever and an astute playmaker. The wing backs and forwards must at least be good ball carriers, tall, good tacklers and fast running. The full-forwards should be able to win dirty ball, make telling runs for advantage ball, able to score regularly and tackle effectively. New positions like ‘channel runner’ or ‘line breaker’ should be known.

9. Stay up-to-date with new trends
New systems, strategies, team formation/patterns of play, come out regularly in sport and Gaelic games is no different. The best coaches will learn as many as they can and adapt them for their team. A new pattern or system could be  the difference between winning and losing giving your team a ‘surprise’ advantage over your opponents.
If you only use antiquated/old/traditional methods and don’t modernise, the coach will find they developed a reputation of being ‘past’ their time, instead of ‘ahead’.

10. Learn to better evaluate your player panel
Simply put – don’t force your system of play. Do encourage a system of play which suits players’ strengths and allows them individually and as a team to maximise their talent usage. Your system of play must fit the players and not the other way round. A ‘smart coach’ then is one who knows how to adapt a system to his players rather than his players to the system.

11. Stay open-minded
Coaches everywhere quickly learn there is always someone out there doing it better than themselves. So develop your own systems, recruit the best assistant coaches around, create a smooth flowing team organisation structure, attend clinics, speak to other coaches, watch lots of videos, read articles about the best coaches, arrange a meeting with a top coach.

Remember, there is always something new out there. Stay open-minded when hearing about new ideas. If you don’t, someone else will.
Go on, become a better coach.