Accidental manager getting it right

John Allen's self-effacing belief in his players is central to his managerial excellence, writes Tom Humphries

Hurling has been fortunate in the last decade with the type of personalities who have slipped the bainisteoir's bib over their shoulders. Loughnane and Griffin and Babs have been top-rank entertainers, not a grey man among them or indeed in the second ranks of say Cody, Dalo, Mike Mac, Michael Bond and Père Whelahan. Not all vaudevillians but big characters nonetheless.

And into that mix John Allen fits well, not for the volume at which his thoughts are issued or for the outsize nature of his claims but for the charming modesty he brings to a job he has performed flawlessly over the past couple of seasons.

Perhaps somewhere in all the textbooks of managerial psychology and methodology it says a man might look himself in the mirror every day and find himself surprised to be a manager at all. Nowhere does it say he can tell people about it. John Allen is a one-off.

"I never foresaw when I got a phone call in 1999 to come down and help out as a masseur that I would be managing a team to an All-Ireland final. I pinch myself every day. Of course I do. Sure, I put a lot of work into it, but so do all other managers. They aren't as fortunate as I've been."

His style is an extension of that modesty. He took the Cork job and slowly the team has been shaped according to the needs of the day, yet never has Allen sought to put his own maker's mark on Cork hurling. In the macro and the micro sense he is a man content to leave things unless they need fixing.

"We may play better some days than others but at the same time they're all doing their best out there. If we can make it a bit better for fellas, fine, but I'm glad to say we've won every game. No doubt we go off and we nitpick, we say this didn't work or that didn't work. You have to take the whole mix and look at it rationally, though."

Cork's first 15 have tenure. When they lose maybe they won't be so secure but until then Allen can live with the reassurance of permanence. And in games he isn't a meddler. Cork rarely make a substitution in hope of something just happening. Substitutions are minimally disruptive. In the last two All-Ireland semi-finals Allen's substitutions have been inspired - courageous strokes which changed the games. Not that Allen will concede as much.

"Inspired? You see, with Cathal Naughton, for example, you weren't at Cork training for the previous weeks. If you saw him in the Munster semi-final you'd have said not great. At training, though, you had to be impressed. He was young and worth a chance. It was a game with 15 minutes to go. Not much was known about him, he got two touches, two scores."

Had you been at Cork training for the previous two weeks you might have noticed the things Allen noticed about Naughton.

"He played soccer with (Nottingham) Forest, I think, so he has good spatial awareness. Not everyone would have scored that goal. He had to finish it. Not a big, 'burst the net' shot but nice and clever. He can do that."

That sums up Cork. When it comes to the finish they play it nice and clever. They have acquired Houdini's skill at extricating themselves from tricky situations as the clock runs down. Allen isn't claiming credit for having infected them with his implacability.

"There's a self-belief that only comes with the fact that we've done it. No manager can put it into a team. If you win one tight game it leads you maybe to believe the next day that you aren't beaten. I think the opposition believes that too. We aren't beaten till the whistle is blown. It comes from experience.

"In 2003 every game we were down at half-time. 2004 we didn't score from play till the 31st minute of the final. Last year we were down six against Clare with 15 to go. This year we were down four points (early enough, mind) against Waterford. There is realisation there among our fellas we aren't beaten. We have the history to prove it."

Still the preparation Cork do factors in the pressure, the galloping craziness of the closing stages of an All-Ireland final. Players prepare not just to play under pressure but to make the right decision under pressure. Cork don't indulge in the full-scale 70-minute games other counties are famous for.

"A couple of times in training we play 12 or 15 minutes at very high intensity. In drills there is pressure on the player all the time - somebody on you as you do the drill. That helps people to think quickly because they are repeatedly doing it."

The three-in- a-row rears its head again. Allen is dismissive.

"This All-Ireland is one Cork want as badly as any recent wins. No more. No less. Three in a row would be somebody else's idea of a big day, one for the story books. There'll be no trumpets from the Leeside windows about it. An All-Ireland is an All-Ireland."

Still, three in succession? Allen is competitor enough to allow himself a smile. For a man who began his job feeling he might always be compared to his predecessor he is closing in on history with a steady hand.

"Ah, listen," he says. "We started the job in Cape Town on December 31st, and hopefully we'll finish in Páirc an Chrocaigh on Sunday."