National Football League/ Focus on Galway: Given his playing pedigree and passion for the game, Galway manager Liam Sammon seems cut out to lead, writes Keith Duggan.
"Why did I decide to do it? Oh God!" Liam Sammon chuckles at a question he has probably heard more than once since he was appointed as senior manager to the Galway football team.
"I have always been involved. When I retired [from teaching in St Mary's] last January, Rosemary and I went away for a few months and I had plenty of time to think. When I was asked about the job, I felt it was a challenge I could look forward to and I realised I had been involved with every player on the panel at some stage in their careers. So it wasn't like I was an outsider not knowing who I was dealing with."
Commuter traffic streams past the football board's startlingly impressive football training ground on the outskirts of Claregalway. On training nights, Sammon arrives here just after six o'clock to lay out the equipment for the gym circuit training to his satisfaction.
The training ground was opened in September and is genuinely extravagant, with changing rooms comparable to those of the ritziest of Europe's best football clubs, a plush diningroom, full kitchen and spacious upstairs gym complete with sprint track.
It is surely a far cry from the days when Sammon trained with and played on the celebrated Galway three-in-row team, photographs of which adorn the diningroom walls with the rest of the county's All-Ireland-winning teams.
In addition to preparing for tomorrow's attractive opening league match against Laois, Sammon has just published his second coaching manual, entitled Optimising Performance in Gaelic Football.
THERE IS WIDESPREADexpectation that under Sammon's watch, Galway will play in the traditional style, with an emphasis on direct, skilful and open football. But although the philosophy may be a throwback, Sammon has strong ideas on the evolution of training practices in Gaelic football.
The manual he has written elaborates on his ideas and it seems safe to state he won't be simply mimicking the procedures in rival counties.
"I think there are two ways we have gone wrong. We have taken all our strength and conditioning from rugby people. I have an issue with that in the sense that we are not playing rugby.
"We don't really need that type of conditioning. Players need strength and power but not that bulk or this thing of 'what's the most I can bench-press?' Can I get it up to 100 kg?' That isn't much good to you when you are out playing the game. We need to change that, I feel.
"Secondly, in latter years we have handed our fitness over to athletics. And is that all necessary for Gaelic football? Training should match what you do in a game. Anything else is superfluous. All our training will be done with the ball."
On the face of it, entering the management game at this period in life seems like an enormous risk for Sammon to take. His personal legacy is unimpeachable, with an All-Ireland medal won in 1966 and All Star awards in 1971 (at midfield) and 1973 (at wing forward) highlights in a long career that saw him selected on every line on the field before he retired in 1978.
His selection as manager means there is a direct link between young players like Seán Armstrong and John "Tull" Dunne, the forceful 1934 captain who was the dressingroom voice when Sammon was starting out.
"Frank Stockwell did the training those times. But that was mainly playing games. Most of the lads were fit from doing so much on their own. Games were more of a contest then. You won your area against your marker.
"That doesn't have to be the case today because the support play is so well developed and you just don't see those 50-50 contests as much.
"Tull Dunne was an enigma, really. A lot of people liked him and a lot of people disliked him because of his approach. He was in total control. He had a great feeling for Galway football and for the ability within the county."
Sammon might be more low-key in his approach but it is clear he shares that serious empathy for the maroon game.
Polite and carrying himself with the natural, quiet authority of a lifelong teacher, he has something steely in his demeanour. It is unlikely he formed such a strong managerial partnership with Kevin Heffernan on the infamous International Rules tour of 1986 purely because he was pleasant company on the long flight.
STILL, THIS IS AN IMPATIENTtime. The glow from the John O'Mahony era has begun to dim and the last season of Peter Ford's term in charge of the county was blighted by rumour and innuendo and a spiteful campaign to undermine his authority. In retrospect, Ford's task was ferociously difficult and always bound to draw unflattering comparison to the splendour with which Galway operated from 1998 until 2004.
Unquestionably, Ford's teams operated with a meaner edge than Galway football people are accustomed to. But even in the bedraggled days of last season, when they lost to Leitrim in the Connacht semi-final, it has quickly been forgotten that Galway produced scintillating football on other days. Yet the last championship ended on a dispiriting note against Meath.
The recruitment of Sammon, one of the gilded names in the county, might have been a reaction to that in part.
From his long involvement with minor teams, from the Rules squads, from taking occasional sessions with John O'Mahony and his influential role in the rise of city club Salthill Knocknacarra, Sammon has observed the pressures of the modern game. He knows the public will expect results.
Like many Galway football people, he was stunned by how smoothly Galway became All-Ireland champions again in 1998, after 32 years when hurling seemed to eclipse football as the pre-eminent sport in the county. Sammon had worked with Bosco McDermott in 1995, when Galway lost an All-Ireland semi-final to Tyrone, one of several "nearly" days for the county.
"We were just one or two short. Then you had the best two footballers in the country coming along in Michael Donnellan and Padraic Joyce. See, you cannot beat class. It suddenly seemed inevitable that they were going to win.
"But I thought 1998 was wonderful. They mixed it so well and it was lovely to watch. That was a period when a lot of exceptional players came together at the right time. And who knows? - maybe they should have won more."
Joyce, of course, remains part of the mix, and coaxing the best out of the Killererin man in the autumn of his football life will surely be central to Sammon's ambitions. Judging by his club performances as recently as last autumn, there is still a lot of game there.
There is no question that Galway remain a high-calibre football team but their potential as All-Ireland candidates will become clearer as the league progresses. In recent years, they have been a notoriously hard team to read and the gradual retirement of key senior men, from Donnellan to Seán Óg De Paor and Ja Fallon, means Sammon may be coming into a team that is still trying to identify its natural leaders.
"It possibly is," he acknowledges.
"How quickly they make this transition - well, it could be this year or it could be 10 years."
Sammon glances at the clock in his office. His players have begun to arrive for training and he needs to return to the gym. In terms of comfort and technology, these facilities are light years away from his training nights in Tuam Stadium. But while this training complex was being built, the players still used the floodlit pitches for night training. Two industrial lorry-containers served as home. One was rigged with a makeshift shower unit and a kitchen was fitted in another. It was basic, but as John Joe Halloran, the county board chairman who conceived and drove the project to completion, noted, "Galway won two under-21 All-Irelands, one minor and one senior All-Ireland out of those lorries. This place has a lot to live up to."
AND FOR ALL THE GRANDEUR, the ethos remains the same. Sammon arrives alone and prepares the gym. The ideas and techniques are more sophisticated than the old ways of laying out the cones or flags for the endless running of laps. But the whole enterprise still boils down to the energy and influence of one man. His faith in the power of the basic skill of football - the kick - is unshakeable.
"The primary skills are definitely diminishing. Now, the top schools play marvellous football because they don't rely so much on strength. It is going to be hard to beat a county like Kerry because they mix those things so well. They aren't as predictable. And it is difficult when the skill level is not so developed. Everything you do in training must be progressive or there is no point. But we are looking forward to this league. The teams we are up against in Pearse Stadium alone will give us marvellous games. Laois, Tyrone, Derry and Kerry are mouthwatering for the spectators and they are a great yardstick for ourselves. It is hard to know."
Optimising Performance in Gaelic Football (Standard Printers, €15) by Liam Sammon is available at all Elvery's shops. All proceeds will benefit the Physically Challenged Youth Teams Charity.
