No need to get unhinged for walk-on part

SIDELINE CUT:Studying the body language, and not only the bad language, as teams take the field has become de riguer for serious GAA fans

LIKE THE carnival fortune-tellers of old peering into tea leaves or reading the lifelines on weather- beaten palms, we all like to study the manner in which our favourite GAA team takes the field; we want to gauge if they are, as the saying goes, "up for it". Like everything else in life, taking the field for "the warm-up" has become a complicated business in the GAA world.

There was a time when the most pressing demand made on any county manager was that he work his players into such a state of anticipation and high dudgeon they would

pile out en masse, tearing through the tunnel like a crowd of maniacs and marking their appearance with much whooping and swearing, kicking up a cloud of dust like the cavalry in the old John Ford westerns.

The harder the team was running, the better it looked for the manager and the louder the crowd would roar. Afterwards, there would be much discussion about the ruined state of the dressingroom they had just evacuated.

The conventional manner of opening the door and exiting in orderly file was never an option for any self-respecting GAA team. Some players would recall that the manager's speech had been so inspiring they had no choice, but to "take the door off its hinges".

One Croke Park caretaker reported that during the Kerry Golden Years, replacing the doors in the Hogan stand was the biggest expense incurred by the association. They replaced something like 85 doors during the Kerry four-in-a-row years. It was said that if Kerry had won the Five, the GAA was simply going to install saloon-style swing doors to try and cut the costs.

Of course, others were so impatient to get out there and die for the jersey they would skip the door entirely and simply burst through the wall. Most people presumed that was just metaphor, but there was a story of one particularly feared full back from the late 1980s who was told to shake the masonry from his hair and shoulders before the teams lined up to meet the President.

The strategically placed wooden bench would be the first port of call for the team.

There were years when the GAA photograph bench - an inconceivably small and low piece of furniture - was placed precariously close to the entrance of the tunnel. Given that GAA teams tended to take the field as if entering the last turn of an Olympic relay race, there was often a real danger that, blinded by the excitement, lads would fail to notice the bench and, tripping over it at speed, inflict an injury that would cause them to miss the game.

But at the last moment, the players would effect a spectacular leap, demonstrating what the Afro-American brothers like to call "jumps", before impatiently posing for the obligatory team photograph. With the adrenaline still shooting through them, most of the lads found the imposition of having to stand still practically intolerable. Most celebrated All-Ireland photographs capture the heroes grimacing, gnashing teeth, rolling eyes and pulling all sorts of contortions with their faces in order to cope with the ordeal. Most fellows look as though they are facing the firing squad rather the GAA paparazzi.

That duty over, the team would then break away towards one of the goalposts, prompting another thunderous roar of approval from the crowd. On All-Ireland final days, the volume of the crowd's roar would be such that fellows would break into sudden sprints, a bit like startled colts.

Or they would start jumping for imaginary footballs or try to kick points from ludicrously ambitious distances. They would carry out a series of dangerously extreme stretches that could only serve to damage the muscle in question.

In short, when players took the field for big matches, the noise and the excitement made them go temporarily nuts. In fact, back in the old days, when the training was not so rigorous, the whole ritual of taking the field was so intense it visibly took its toll on some lads, who looked knackered by the time they traipsed around the field for the parade.

It was only a matter of time before managers and the team of crack commando backroom men began to turn their thoughts to this whole tradition of taking the field.

For a start, it is no longer about 15 heroes horsing out across the green. Modern day GAA teams resemble small, mobile armies. Sure, the players still run out first, but they are quickly followed by a vast support cast carrying heavy-duty tackle bags, rations, mini-traffic cones, boots, gloves, tracksuits, crates of water and, for all we know, a portable barbecue in case of extra-time.

The time-honoured practice of wandering around the field casually banging over points from handy angles while covertly trying to spot your girlfriend in the crowd is old hat.

Contemporary warm-up routines must be seen to have a purpose and so teams get stuck into rotating-hand-pass drills, keep-ball drills, tackling and all the rest.

Sometimes, during matches with particularly high wide counts, you cannot help thinking they would have been better employed getting in a bit of late target practice. But nothing looks as slack as a team aimlessly knocking a few footballs around while the opposition at the far end of the pitch are engaged in a fully fledged match as well as yoga and judo exercises.

When that happens, a manager has no choice but to gather his lads in a circle, stand in the centre and start shouting at them, with much exaggerated pointing of fingers and slamming of fists for the benefit of those people looking down from the nosebleed seats. At least that way, he still looks to be in control.

Over the coming weeks, some teams will amble out on to the field in a show of total control. Others will elect to actually walk out into the arena in a bid to convey absolute deliberation and menace, à la David Sole and the Scotland rugby team in Murrayfield in 1990. Executed correctly, this strategy has the power to cause heart attacks of delight in the stands, but it is highly risky. A team runs the risk of looking like it simply cannot be bothered.

The issue of taking the field is most tricky for the poor Dubs, whose relationship with the Hill crowd has become so complicated they may soon be required to perform some sort of Marcel Marceau-style street theatre before setting about winning the Sam Maguire.

Perhaps in time there will be a return to simpler ways, when the old reliable of sending men out ready to die if not already actually half dead will once again be regarded as the height of enlightened warm-up philosophy.

But for now, it is all part of the show.