Addiction of the magical moments

Jack O'Connoron how being a manager is like running a decent-sized company in your spare time

Well, we're off. The first Sunday of the championship is done and the first harsh judgments of the managers are in. Winners and losers. Intercounty management is a tough game.

What is a manager in the first place? A leader, a psychologist, a motivator, a counsellor, a breaker of good news and a breaker of bad news. He knows the way he breaks the bad news can define his time in the job. But he's a cheerleader as well, always making players feel good about themselves. And he's the great pretender. During all of this the manager can't show any signs of the strain he is under. He looks after all these people. Nobody looks after the manager.

In this early part of the summer, when games are being played for which teams have been training and planning for a long time, a big part of the success comes from psyching out your opponent. Declan Coyle, our psychologist in Kerry, tells a story about a Stanley Cup (ice hockey) game where a journalist goes to do a pre-match interview with one of the managers.

"Do you think you'll win?" asks the journalist.

"Yeah. I think we'll win but that's not too important," says the boss. "If you go down to the next dressingroom, though, they think we're going to win too. That's important."

At the top of the tree there are about half a dozen intercounty managers who will almost always end the year being regarded as winners. Everyone else struggles. For most managers starting their team out on the road after epic preparations means hoping they might get a run of two, maybe three games. That is difficult.

The pressure is phenomenal. Each manager has a squad of players to keep happy, plus a backroom team of 10 to 20 in number, and then county board people keeping watch. Add in statisticians and video analysts and that's a lot of people. It's like running a decent-sized company in your spare time.

The amount of time spent going to training, to meetings and just watching club matches is incredible. Most managers need bonding trips with the family not the players! And it's all for no pay (in most cases).

Why is it so addictive? You do it all for those moments. I'll always remember coming off the field in Croke Park last summer after we had beaten our nemesis, Armagh. The hair standing on the back of my neck, the Kerry people in the stands getting behind us again.

I always think of a quote from John Dowling, the Kerry captain in 1955, about the day he was chaired off the field having led Kerry to beat the Dublin machine. He said every sacrifice he had made for football since childhood was worth it for that experience. It all crystallises into magical moments.

Along the way managers try to outwit and out-pysche each other but there is kinship there. We share the same experiences. We all know, for instance, that if the leaders within a team turn against you, then you have no chance.

Taking on the big fish to prove your mettle can be foolish. Look at Mick McCarthy and Roy Keane. Even Tony Considine and Davy Fitz. Whatever the ins and out and the rights and wrongs, the amount of energy being wasted in Clare is a distraction. Is it worth it unless you are trying to prove a ferociously important point? Every manager knows the public will generally side with a player. Players win games. Managers lose them. That's the public perception.

There's kinship but we watch each other. I remember being at a press conference before a big game and the rival manager was asked if he was happy with the referee for the occasion. He replied that he was, just so long as he did a better job than the last time he had encountered him. Translation: instant pressure on the referee.

I got a friend of the referee in question to call him and raise the matter in jest, just so he knew we knew what was going on.

In the end there will be one big winner. And, strangely, on All-Ireland night one big loser. Losing teams in an All-Ireland final never get the credit they deserve. In 2005, we thought we were in a great final against a great team. We were within a point of Tyrone with a few minutes to go. When it's over though, you are history. You go out the sidedoor and listen to the cheering behind.

In September it ends for everyone. When you lose the world stops. It is so clearcut. Winner. Loser. It all stops but your head keeps working. There are withdrawal symptoms. You feel cheated. No training on Tuesday? You can't settle. Home routine is impossible. The game is in your head. You are in an another world. It takes weeks, months to come back.

And even for the winner coming back the next year after a holiday and a few months of backslapping is hard. Saying to yourself you are starting again. Bottom of the ladder in the muck and shit, fighting teams in March who regard beating you as their All-Ireland. You want to fast forward to September and Croke Park. You just want the sun shining and 80,000 people looking down. It's a long tough road for everyone. Everyone out there is prepared to succeed. Not many are prepared to prepare to succeed. Even some of those who are will be branded as losers.