CAN you ever be too perfect? No is probably the automatic answer, but sometimes the pursuit of excellence in sport can lead to a futile road looking for the impossible – the perfect athlete or the perfect performance. The competitiveness of sport brings us to stressful situations like injuries, performance pressures, rows within the camp, rows […]
By Declan McCoy I WAS fortunate enough to have been in Croke Park last year to witness one of the best games of football in years when Armagh played Galway in the All-Ireland quarter final. The game was action-packed with quality, drama and, of course, controversy. One incident that I have spoken to a lot […]
By Patrick Morrison OVER the coming two articles, I will delve deep into the various developmental stages of goalkeeping. These stages can help both goalkeepers and coaches in their continuing quest for progression. They can be used as a kind of map or set of signposts to show where exactly they or their goalkeepers stand […]
LAST Friday evening in our school, St Joseph’s Newry, hosted the second of our January coach education evenings, with Clare Senior Football Coach Mark Doran delivering a brilliant session on using games to break down a crowded defence. There was 150 coaches at it and the previous week there was over 200 coaches there to witness […]
A FEW funny things can happen your training when you stop playing football. For one, you could pack in going to the gym altogether. You were only training to be in good shape for kicking ball, right? It was a bit of a slog too, so the green light to step away…deadly. Unfortunately that path […]
By Patrick Morrison NEW Year Resolutions have been around for millennia. Many religions around the globe would practice this custom as a completion of one year and the commencement of the next. In fact, it is believed that 4,000 years ago it was the ancient Babylonians who were the first people to use New Year’s […]
HAVING travelled to Croke Park for the All-Ireland Club football semi-finals, I came away hugely impressed with the supreme levels of physical conditioning in all four teams. It showed just how much the club game has progressed with players both individually and collectively taking huge pride in their conditioning. Gone now are the days at […]
FOR the weekend past, with Glen reaching the All-Ireland Club final I think we can’t go by without chatting about the amount of attention a certain ginger maestro was getting up and down the country. The fact that by going overseas to make a go of things piqued the public’s interest in the first place, coming […]
I LOVE the energy that a new year brings. Fresh optimism. A real desire to make this year to be a better year than the previous, regardless of how ‘good’ or ‘bad’ it went. For men and women entering their first year not playing ball it can feel like a blank canvas. No structure to rely on, […]
By Patrick Morrison JANUARY is the time of year whenever teams and players come out of their Growth Season by moving into their Pre-season training regimes. These usually include methods to improve a player’s stamina with the majority of this time spent completing various running programs; to increase a player’s strength with specifically individualised S&C […]
