THIS week we completed our hugely popular coach education January programme. Over the last three weeks, myself, Benny Coulter, Ciaran McKeever and Marty Clarke have completed a number of workshops all with a different coaching theme. This week Marty Clarke’s was based around ‘Setting up for the Turnover.’

Having watched quite a large number of games back last season, there is still one abiding feature that dictates the vast majority of games and that is the key word “Turnovers.” Turnovers occur when you have possession and someone tackles you legitimately and takes the ball off you, or alternatively when you have possession and you give it away because of pressure being put on you.

The fact of matter still remains, and was very evident last weekend, the team who wins the game will have significantly more turnovers than the losing team. Your ability to turn the opposition team over successfully will have a huge bearing on your success.

Gaelic football is ever-evolving tactically with innovations in our game circulating regularly and being copycatted at club level across the country. However, one thing still remains firm, approximately at least over 50 percent of total scores come from turnovers in a game (Last season across championship games it was as high as 65 percent), So clearly it should be a massive tactical focus for all clubs.

I would love to see the exact statistics in Gaelic Football of the amount of scores that emerge from turnovers. I believe it would be well over 50 percent. Imagine conceding 3-15 in your next league game and you score 1-12, but in 15 of your attacks, you were turned over eight times and the opposition scored 2-6 from those eight attacks. Most of us will blame the defending and focus in on the defending when in effect it should be focusing in on not getting the ball turned over as cheaply!

When the ball is in an attacking position for elite teams, they already have four of five players preparing to set up in a good defensive position, just in case possession is lost while attacking.

If they go on and score great but if the opposition win the ball back, usually all the main avenues of exit for them can be blocked or even diverted to a certain channel. That means they are able to keep the ball in their attacking half or better still win it back there and score straight away. Dublin were the kingpins of it, and now Tyrone seem to have taken steps towards that model.

Pep and Klopp in soccer have prepared and coached a very similar style, nearly preparing for the transition from attack to defence just as importantly as defence to attack. Pep’s teams in particular leave a core block of players in a safety net with the rest either hunting the ball at its source or committing a strategic tactical foul.

Marty was quick to point this out regarding AFL teams also, that a large percentage of AFL teams analysed games and realised that the large volume of scores were coming from and setting their teams up to combat the counter attack.

This is where I think GAA teams need to go from a coaching perspective.

Don’t wait until the moment of transition until you start charging towards your own goal trying to win the ball back, already have your foundations of defence in place.

A few instructions to a few players in certain positions will help get this going. When coaching defending the counter attack, a few designated defenders can be told to set up in certain attacking positions to make the transition from defence to attack swifter. That gives an underprepared opposition less time to protect their own goal when they lose possession.

The key to transition football is turnovers so the most important part of it is not giving the ball away. Obviously the quicker you move the ball when a turnover occurs the more likely you are to score.

And of course, you must generate turnovers through tackling, intercepting and forcing mistakes from the opposition.

ADVICE…Former Down star Marty Clarke

THE ART OF DEFENCE…Pressure from forwards like Conor McKenna is key in the modern game