Monaghan leaving nothing to chance

Ian O'Riordanreports on the transformation in training facilities and thorough preparation which has helped improve the county's fortunes

Any team playing championship football in the month of August must have done the groundwork over the winter months, and Monaghan were no exception. In fact they went to considerable lengths to ensure their fitness would not be left wanting come the height of summer.

Unable to secure club pitches to train on, they instead obtained the use of a smaller playing field at St McCartan's College in Monaghan town. To modernise the facility they installed a portable work light on the gables of the student dormitories that backed onto either end of the field.

Given the small dimensions of this training area, the team also made use of the street lights around Monaghan by starting each session with a 20-minute run on the roads. To conclude the warm-up they would also sprint up the hill leading to the college. Their only problem was getting a physio for night duty, and any player carrying a muscle strain had to tough it out.

Unfortunately it wasn't quite enough, and having won a second Ulster football title in four years, they fell to Cork in the All-Ireland semi-final.

But that was 19 years ago. Now, playing championship football in the month of August for the first time since that 1988 season, Monaghan are unquestionably better prepared.

The current team are the first to benefit from the county's purpose-built training facilities at Cloghan in Annyalla, a few miles outside Castleblaney. Officially opened in November of last year, the €2.2 million facility has five Prunty-built pitches, two of which are full size and floodlit. There are also four separate dressingrooms as well a meeting room, kitchen facilities and office space.

Situated just off the Castleblayney bypass, thereby allowing easy access from national roads, particularly for those travelling from Dublin, the Annyalla facility is among the best in the country.

It's no great coincidence then that under manager Séamus McEnaney, Monaghan are enjoying their best championship run since 1988. McEnaney has completed the highly professional approach by bringing in a range of back-up men, starting with the revered team trainer Martin McElkennon.

The esteemed goalkeeping coach Paul O'Dowd, also known as "the Podman", is also on board, as is sports psychologist Brendan Hackett, the chief executive of Athletics Ireland. Hackett describes the Monaghan set-up as beyond anything he's seen in over two decades of working with county panels, with a level of professionalism he'd previously have associated with national Olympic teams.

For Niall Moyna, the man behind that Monaghan training regime of 1988, it is clearly a change for the better - light years ahead of what he had to work with. Now head of the Health and Human Performance school at Dublin City University, Moyna was an integral part of his native Monaghan's backroom team of the late 1980s, under then manager Seán McCague.

"I started with Monaghan in 1983, when they were one game away from being relegated to Division Four," explains Moyna. "The year they won Ulster, in 1985, I was away in the US, and came back in 1988 with a master's degree, and was maybe more au fait with current theory.

"We started to do a lot of speed endurance, middle-distance type programmes, but they were appropriate for the time, because players weren't doing year-round conditioning programmes. We had eight weeks to whip them into shape.

"I was also the PE teacher in St McCartan's and along with Paraic Duffy, who was teaching there, we got the use of that playing field, because we genuinely didn't have access to training fields. We had great problems trying to get club pitches.

"When I think of the facilities, and the showers and that, well it was a lot different to what you have now. Of course the whole training theory has moved on so much since then as well. Players tend not to go through the cyclical increases and decreases in fitness that they did 20 years ago. In other words, the county players these days stay fitter. I can recall players putting on four or five stone in the winter. That wasn't unusual then, but you rarely see it now."

Moyna visited the Annyalla facility for the first time last week, and admits he was "blown away". On his election as chairman of Monaghan county board, John Connolly made the development a top priority and the intention now is that the county can reap the rewards over the coming years. In other words, it's not just about benefiting the senior county panel, but opening a whole new future for Monaghan GAA.

"It is a marvellous facility," adds Moyna. "And an enormous move forward on 1988. The playing surface is like a carpet. And quite obviously the intention is that it will work its way down to the development squads. The evening I saw it the under-15 squad was there, and a women's team was also using it.

"It is visionary, and has been in the planning for years. But this is the model going forward, because the days of county teams looking for club pitches to train on are long gone. So Monaghan has that centre of excellence now, and the key from here on is build on this, not to be a one-season wonder. They need to look at say, Tyrone and Kerry, and that conveyor belt of talent. That means generating more underage success, and I think Monaghan are now in a position to do that going forward."

It's now 62 years since Monaghan last won an Ulster minor football title, in 1945, a team that, amazingly, included Moyna's father. Whether or not they beat Kerry in Croke Park tomorrow afternoon, the county is clearly moving forward with the times, and expect Monaghan to become a force at underage in the near future.

In the meantime McEnaney can look on his preparations for this year and know nothing more could be done. Everything has been covered - mind and body - and the question now is what else could be done to take Monaghan to the top table of championship football, and keep them there.

"Monaghan are fortunate that they do have a fantastic management team," adds Moyna, "and an excellent coach. That's what it's all about, and you have to be careful not to buy into all of the other stuff.

"Most of the changes we've seen are very, very positive. But you can also fall into the trap that just because you have all these peripheral things going on then you must be doing it right. That's not necessarily going to guarantee you success either. Most teams know the effort it takes. But I would wonder sometimes if all this peripheral stuff can be justified at all times. And the expense that's being incurred on a small number of players, but from a coaching perspective, all the peripheral things are there now.

"One thing is still lacking is being able to take an individual player, and dissect their strengths and weaknesses, particularly their weakness. And from an early age. What you do then is design an appropriate intervention, and that will be the next big jump. But with the Annyalla facility Monaghan have put a benchmark in place.

"I still believe the higher you go in intercounty football, the more psychological it becomes, rather than physical."

That, perhaps, is the only challenge left for Monaghan football, because one thing they can't be accused of is failing to prepare.