This week saw Ireland achieve massive 400m and 1500m success taking home gold and silver from the European Championships.
400m in particular hasn't been something that Ireland have been traditionally known for in terms of success.
So how was this tradition created in such a relatively short timeframe?
And how can it be applied to GAA in Carlow to net the same results?
Incoming Knockbeg College Principal John Maye is perfectly placed to give us the insight and voice that we need on this with his love for all things sport, but particularly athletics.
John was also involved with Carlow inter county squads in the past with mindset a particular focus point and he has some real nuggets in this one.
We speak about all this, the vision for Knockbeg and much more over what is a very enjoyable hour.
If you enjoy the podcast and wish to support the podcast you can spot us a coffee here: https://buymeacoffee.com/leftwingback
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[Music] Hello and welcome along to today's edition of the left-wing back podcast in association with our partners, property partners boogie located in Port Leash, call to sports your go-to option for all sportswear clothing, table hotel in Carlo who have just opened up on buru bar, table fitness of course located there, as well contact mark for all your gym needs and keeping out on our social media over the next couple of weeks for a gym giveaway, more on that to follow. Part of the motor is located on the Obrine Road, find selection of used vehicles, earthspas, PFT travel, no matter where you want to go, MJ Farrell and his later bosses can take it, they're a part of our own photography who's been exceptionally good with his photos this year. Maury's bar in Balamorphy, you want to point particularly with horland season coming up, sharing a look after their in Balamorphy and Ray Wayne unlimited to go to waste management service in Carlo for quite some time. So on today's program we ask the question how do you create tradition and we're looking at the recent example of Irish athletics who have achieved phenomenal success this week, success that back 10, 20 years ago wasn't really there, so how do you go about creating that environment and become a dominant force on your being and hopefully eventually on a world stage, well no matter man to tell us all about that then incoming principle of not being Mr John May, a good friend of the podcast over a number of years at this particular point, John would have had a GA involvement as well not just with not being but he was with Carlo miners last year in the performance capacity, his athletics mad, his sports mad very articulate, very insightful and he gives us some great insight into maybe how Carlo GA can look at what Irish athletics have done and build that tradition over a period of time. It's a cracking lesson, we do hope you enjoy and as always if you want to support the podcast you can buy us a coffee or buy me a coffee link is on the website you want to get in touch is info@leftwingback.com and if you want to come out of the place with us for the upcoming club championships which really are very very popular in terms of our content you can do so by DM and us are again at info@leftwingback.com. Okay on this week's episode on the left wing back podcast we deviate slightly into athletics but not better time we're supposed to do it with what we've seen over the past number of days in terms of Irish athletics but we are going to talk a bit about GA and all our things with sight as well with a good friend of mine and definitely I guess the but looking forward to getting on the podcast for some time the incoming principle of not being college I'm delighted to say Mr John May, how is that title sound and what way are you keeping? Well I just thought to myself that actually sounds brilliant Kevin I really enjoyed hearing that so and thank you for the introduction it's brilliant to be to be back on trial myself and yourself have we've collaborated over the years quite a bit going back to maybe a fairly stormy basketball match once upon a time up in Newbridge and certainly through your time in KCLR and and on the left wing as well and I really I just want to say at the off I'm a big fan of the left wing and it's I really appreciate the standard of work you've delivered this year like I mean some of your interviews have just been incredible and and third played you in great workout yeah really appreciate that we'll set up the mutual appreciation society here and all members want to join us only five year a month I'm only joking I'm only joking but yeah now listen spot on like I mean we always had good conversations and I always come away learning something from those John and I think that's because you're very broad based in your sport and interest and and indeed your experience from a coaching perspective and a coaching point of view and we will talk of course but not big a little bit later on in the episodes I know it means a lot to you and I was only there myself for a year but I came away with some magical memories if there was points for having the crack I would have got 600 I only got half of that but I had good crack so you know you take away some good life long lessons with that as well but I suppose we we we can't not address the most striking aspect of the past few days which is on the athletics front it's something that's very close to your heart with KCLR and indeed it had been with not big when you were there at last as well I'm sure in between hasn't been too shabby either wherever you've gone you've probably tried to make a big promotion of it but we've seen some fantastic stuff we've seen goal medals we've seen silver medals and we have an Olympics to come so this is a broad introduction to the topic I guess but we get we get your overview first yeah so I mean last few days for our genetics has just been magic and you know you go 26 years out of gold medal and then you get two of them in three days and then you get two additional silver medals on top of it like it has just been a magic few days and I know myself from within the club in KCH like this this stuff is you know it looks like an overnight success it's everybody people are coming up to me in work people I meet people on the street my you know my my my parents are talking to like God did you see the athletics I'm like yeah I did actually see the athletics I'm that loser that's watching it on a on youtube or on flow track when it's when it's not cool and jazzy but now everyone's watching an rt and I'm delighted because number one it's such a watchable sport I always think it's like you cannot beat the buzz of like a big championship race or a big event like that and I really I always encourage people God if you can go to a championships of any sort go and see it because it's just it's the purest purest competition in ways and but yeah it's a like I mean first I don't think this was it's kind of like an overnight success maybe to the the wider public yeah I would know or I feel from where I've been for the last 20 odd years with with Irish athletics that it's not an overnight success they put an awful lot of work into KCH education and that has we 20 years ago we were probably we were a nation of distance runners and we still have really really good distance runners etc but now obviously we are a nation that is a sprint relay power and and we're a sprint power and and sprinting is not as simple as line up and go as fast as you can like there's there's a real science to it and I think I have to say one of my my favorite experiences as a coach myself was that at one stage I coached two sprinters a race walk on a javelin chore and they were a group I used to have on a Saturday and none of those are events as I have any capacity capability or ability in and so I had to kind of go and learn the fundamentals and some of the technical aspects of it and sprinting is as technical an event to coach as as you can think of like I mean you're down to you can simplify it and say it's tried then by by straight frequency but I mean it's never that simple like I mean there's a hundred hundred aspects go into that particular formula but the overnight success to coach education Irish athletics to be fair have worked really really hard on that and as a as an Irish athletics nerd yes now we can all see that we have sprinters in our country and we we have these relay panels and it's very exciting we have we have two relay teams going to the Olympics in in 40 seven days but we also now have a chore like there was a Nikola two will finish ninth in the in the hammer final we have a clutch of really really good shot putters the shot putter where not far from where we're sitting at the moment in in gore and AC really really good shot putter there there's international standard trolls is coming back in Ireland and and and so it's across the board across the board nurse athletics coach education has improved the facilities have improved obviously and not yet and click any I'll point out but obviously that the local representatives have heard that message from me fairly loudly and clearly since Monday and Tuesday when they were all reelected and like the facilities question is the question that we always have to try and answer in athletics because obviously when you look at what's in in Britain even only across the water like every decent so he's school in in Britain has an athletics track and you know Carlo has only got two athletics track all of a sudden it's like a bus you're waiting for one and certainly two of them right but like Carlo had no tartan track for how many years like i mean it's just far skilled stuff and then finally i suppose there's been the opportunity like the biggest thing for athletes i always like was the the opportunity to compete and the opportunity to compete at a level that was that was correct for them and that goes from that goes from from from my standard of athletes all the way up to your international elite athletes and a number of years ago and it wasn't to be fair it wasn't led by athletics Ireland initially it was a number of sprint coaches within the Irish system about 10 years ago who really started to push for relay teams and creating the opportunities for your your your sprinters within the nation to to get to international competition now the impact of it is so as i said we have two teams going to the Olympics there are seven Irish women seven Irish 400 meter runners are going to be selected for the Olympics and so if you wanted to see a barn summer i would turn up to watch the Irish championships in a couple of weeks and watch the women's 400 meters semi-final because there is easily like Lauren Caden was that was the sub and the women's four by 400 team she's a 52 for she's a 52 second 400 meter runner there is there's easily five guards out there who are in Lauren Caden right now and so by the time we get to the the national championships there's going to be an almighty dust up to try and get those seven women spots between the mixed relay and the four by four that's not an overnight success that is keeping people in the sport i know within Casey Hake we were very lucky back in 2021 clean and manning who anyone who's ever come on contact with cleaner like i mean she is a dot and the whole club is absolutely in love with her and wants her to succeed so so much and but like it has she's she's she's gotten back up on the on the merry-go-round again and she's going to turn out the national championships to have her rattle at making one of those spaces to get to a second Olympics which is obviously a very difficult thing to do but if you don't have that opportunity creators she doesn't necessarily stay in the sport like because obviously to stay in top in high performance athletics it doesn't pay that very very well unless you're up at the top level like Rashida and you know it's it's a life choice like she is moving into her or i don't know her early torties and she's moving into her early torties i mean Thomas Barr is 31 for example he's still hanging around it's almost certain he doesn't have another look at a 400 meter hurdle medal you know it's a long time ago since he was 14 olympics in Rio bush i mean obviously the depth of the panels in the relay is convincing that guy to stay on and continue and i mean he's in i know he's engaged he's getting married in the next year he's building a house in Watford and his his will be wife is one of those ladies who's going to be trying to get out to the 400 meter relay panels so like they've put their lives in hold a little bit to get to this but of course to have because there's an opportunity now within Irish athletics to do that who's responsible for this revolution so to speak just 20 year overlay success as you call it and was the gravitation towards the sprint side of things to improve it or was there a genuine plan in place to maybe target it uh okay great question uh who's responsible so i would say athletics Ireland obviously get the credit in terms of coach education um they identified that this was the direction that the sport could and was going to travel in within the country so that's that that's their credit i i would say that on the ground the the volunteer coaches and i'm thinking of like Phil Healy last night finally gets a European senior medal and Phil Healy's coach is a guy called Shane McCormack and Shane McCormack and Phil Healy have been working at this particular dream for 10 years but Shane McCormack would have been one of the guys who was really pushing for the relay panels back back in the day and like athletics is such an individual sport but actually the and this is something that we keep seeing with the Irish athletic team among this that community element like that idea of paying back into the system and Shane McCormack, Phil Healy they have given a lifetime of service Irish athletics and they owe it nothing but like Shane i suppose more than anyone in terms of the relays he really pushed for the association and the federation to kind of get behind the idea and another coach started following with them then and they formed a kind of an Irish sprints coach network and like there's the Dublin sprint club has grown out of it and you know the Harrison's down in Limerick they've developed groups and so that's that's kind of where so a little bit of it comes from the federation a little bit of it comes from on the ground and then in the middle of it i mean it's like success just breeds more success so like when you're making this argument it makes it very easy for John May and Clekenny to go and knock in the door of a local female fall counselor and say hey buddy i don't know have you noticed but athletics is really hot right now and it's not hard enough in this city and it could be better what are you going to do about this so like it's there's a momentum in it and i guess that momentum has come from the top and it's come from underground as well yeah when you say about that of course in relation to the track you're currently operating on the water set you're in your whole full of maybe not getting out on the boat that way but having all in your own grounds essentially yeah that's it owning our own grounds because obviously we released the water shed and look we have a fine relationship with the water shed and that's all good and and it's a great facility but yeah i mean just in terms of case the edge like where we are easily the biggest sports club in Clekenny city that does not have its own club or its own clubhouse or its own its own its own ground and that makes no sense because like what what we what we provide to the city in terms of a sporting a cultural a social fabric like we you know we've got four major events that we run through the year the streets of Clekenny obviously being the big one like i mean the whole place marvels about god wow it was an amazing we get we get a thousand people down to run around streets like Andrew Casterin who's running in the 1500 final last night he won the streets of Clekenny two years ago he got to know so who won the streets of Clekenny back in 2019 he was running in half marton so like i mean this is our that that race is one of the biggest races in the country full stop but anyway we've got all these races going and we've all this good will in the city for us but you know i want to see that good will back up a little bit i want to see i want to see a good will noticed in a structural fashion like we've we've had a look at a number of premises around the city we are you know we've been in talks with the council and with the councilors for like i'm going into my age here now in in case he had certainly i've been i've been knocking those doors for seven or eight years and with people knocking those doors before me so it's kind of time time to get on it let's yeah we're just um the umbrella low for athletics home from john because it's not something that i would certainly associate your family with because i know your sister live here was a fantastic moggy player i don't know how much how little harlin and football you did yourself or how much athletics you don't but you have a real passion for the real drive real interesting tourism and other buzz words but they are genuine this particular case you love it essentially it's your life so how how does that call about as a total accident so when i arrived in knockbag back in 2003 i had been i had started down the path of coaching a bit of soccer and sorry just to go back to my own family like you're right like or like you know we're into her in the football i was out in michel which is such a great place to have grown up in because michel in the 1980s and 1990s like if you were doing it you were doing it and you were all in and it's like such a culture out there it was just incredible and you know we moved into michel we were we were you know blowing so to speak bush like the culture of that village was just incredible like it was such a great place to grow up like i remember being on like scoring an old quiz teams and like you'd be getting that you'd be getting pumped up before the the quiz had stacked in the score like you know there were just into everything you know tiny towns there was there was a stage there in michel in the 1990s where the you know won a hurling title they obviously did a hurling of football double at one stage like just into just a such a community the whole place was paying into it and and everybody wanted to win everything it was a magic magic place to grow up and anyway so my own background it was all to know i was a bit of an edict and it was great guy out there much to still that i'm still in contact with michel kelly michel was really into ed edict and you know he was trying to get a bit of run and go and i i just arrived in knockback 2003 i had been playing a bit of soccer myself and i had started coaching a bit of soccer and actually i i i coach i sent mills in longford uh sent mills soccer team to a a westlenster final at the time a westlens a westlenster chapter of the owners and then it was a year of foot and mouth so i was at it was 2001 maybe and so the semi-finals were called off right so but so i was into the soccer and i was doing a bit and uh anyway so i arrived in knockbag and i i spoke with the principal john courtes and john uh asked me would i mind i was training for the dub and city american at the time i decided i was moving down to the south east and i didn't have a soccer club and i said look maybe i'll get ready and i'll try run the american i was i was enjoying doing a bit of distance running very naive way to start running to start with 26.2 miles but anyway that's the way i went and john courtes asked me would i be interested in organizing cross-country for first years and that is actually where it started um you talk about community and you talk about like you know getting that support around you like St Abbins up the road for me who are an and up the road from where you live and they're a phenomenal club like a phenomenal club and they're everything that is good and right in athletics and St Abbins put an arm around me i i i i got some accidental success um i had chaps like you know brian kelly arrived into the school there was barry pender like you know it was just unbelievable days like i mean you know i i think when i left not big i i'd counted up through something like to something like 15 internationals in not big or my time there and a lot of them in St Abbins was the St Abbins national league team that finished second in the other than national league and like nine of the ten on the team were after coming to not big so like what St Abbins came in at that stage and they mentored and coached me through athletics so i mean i don't know if somebody else had got me i i don't know we could be here talking about tiddlywinks or basketball or but it was St Abbins who who came and they kind of recognized that there was something in them if we could if we could channel it the right direction and so you know i i i i hope the lads and abbins are happy with what they've done yeah it's actually a strong movement because okay so they're there on the one hand they're putting in all this work at club level and now they need to make sure that that's kind of reciprocated and it's consistent across the school's level to make sure they're getting the best so you obviously get maybe a a knowledge base hilled up you get to listen to good coaches and all learn yourself adapt that and those are the fundamentals that i would say just listening from the outside and those core values that are ingrained in my issue people that competitive edge that all in kind of thing those seem to be the things that that that formcha and it is interesting where you say like about the other sports i'm waiting to matter kind of what it was that lex was the one that when you say like i thought you think you said something like accidental or something the way you ended up with athletics but you did coach basketball too those values go for a lot if you're for coaching any sport you have those i think you're going to be successful that certainly seems to be a large part of your story anyway yeah like i i just i love coaching and i love i love the puzzle of coaching and and while we're talking here like there's a really great 800 meter runner that used to coach just walked in there in the background and like i love like the puzzle of working out well what has she got that we can bring to the party you know i mean what what is it what type of a race do we want for her and where where do we need to work you know that's just the puzzle and i just really enjoyed the puzzle of coaching i enjoy i love working with other people like it's never i just i find coaching is so energizing and i just i don't know i just i have house enjoyed it i do think there's something in the fact that like if you grew up in michel in the 1980s and 90s i was just there is like a hundred percent like there's something you know there just was something magic in the water out there and i think again we go all the way back around to our genetics like i mean this kind of culture of success and collaboration between people within the the system like that that builds on it you know and it's amazing like it's it's 20 years i would say that our genetics has been working around to this moment and you know i i hope that they can continue to build in this moment that's that's the next challenge for them but but like i i think they will i think they will i think that the systems that the science part of the equation is really strong now and yeah hopefully and you know hopefully i'll be around to you which which which begs the question how do you create tradition i mean it's something that is so easily adaptable to to carillon i'm not quite sure are we finished up with the elect solver and if it's a case we'd all come back to it i mean we have to offer a congratulations it's you know given real life to the country i think what what i love seeing in all this is um and all i give is a form of bandwagoners but you get the casualties come in yeah and you might retain 10 or 20 percent so that's the success in itself it's not different to the littler effect in the darce you see because darce lives popping up in kolimore and a young lad's playing it and young ones playing it and i mean this is this is for me and coming out from maybe a rallying point of view as well when you get that bit of exposure and visibility and such it does count for an awful lot and there's momentum with it so look at i want to ask the question are you looking from a carillon's point of view let's not look this question right so Irish analytics have created seem to be anyway creating a bit of tradition maybe a pathway we're seeing very competitive 400 meter in particular at the minute but that wasn't there in the not too distant past so if we could apply this to the carology because obviously this is primarily a ga podcast how do you create that tradition i suppose that the three areas i i think that Irish analytics really has got to write in or accidentally underground and and as a federation level i go back to coach education like you know what we we need our it's an arms race right and we're all going to get our our young people into our clubs in carolo at six seven like i know last night i lived down into kenny city there's a nephew of mine took part in an under six match last night for james Stevens against six were under six right so he's got the socks fully pulled up he's wearing the gear he's branded that's the first part of the armed race is we get them in when we get them in what like coach education has got to be on point from the get go it's something we worked on really harden in case he hates as well but in carolo ga coach education maybe is the first place that we go and we we want all of our coaches in all of our clubs at the highest possible level we can get them to the facilities question i think carolo ga is probably one that i'm sure again i'm coming from the outside here but it's one that i would imagine has been answered already there's lots of really really good ga grounds in in carolo there's lots of really really good facilities i was you know i was i was briefly or infrequently or a part of the minor setup lasher with with mikkyo like you can see some of the things that have been done around netwatch colin park in terms of like the building of a gym like that different access to the outside page back into gym like you know you've also got the center of excellence out in fena i was out there a number of times like there's the development of something there right and that's how do we get the casuals in then as well is the next question in terms of facilities like we want to get that corporate side of it going uh part of the gig with the minors we went up to abbot sound to the national sports campus can i just interrupt first i thought we were supposed to be going with the minors just for what i'm doing oh great question great question now great question that's possibly a question i can't even answer it's a performance based yeah it was performance based let's come in to kind of look at that that that that mental side of us maybe a little bit and and sort of that idea around pathways that idea around perception what do we do perception is very important perception is so important and and i mean i want i'll come back to an individual from carolo around perception and in a minish but like perception was so important that you can't go out and just expect like i used to find this a little bit unusual sometimes that the same guy i would see and i was in St Mel's in longford as well for a year but the same kgce absolutely dominating is his opponent for St Mel's or for not big could sometimes put a carolo jersey on and something different would happen and i mean even rob heffernum was saying a little bit of this about charlie mozzly having a cushion at femme kebald last night in the relay like maybe ten years ago the Irish fourth runner comes around the bend sees femme kebald up ahead of her who says you know world-class Dutch runner and says oh no no cheers i want to be careful of that now uh where charlie mozzly really leaned into it last night and and that would have been that's the expectation of that group maybe there is a perception in carolo maybe we do need to kind of put our hand up and say god maybe we do have a little bit of an inferiority complex how would you work in that i go back to the torting that I actually have done you create opportunities we have got to create opportunities for charlie gapers i guess to go and work on that you know to go and play games to play games at a level that is appropriate to them to you know keep to carry ten feet in front of them all the time that we're chasing something else down the road and at the moment i am coming into that big in in august but well august september depending on on how the the principal processing in douche college in gregna manigos but down in douche college gregna manna we had James Doyle the carolo hurler inwardous this year as part of his student teacher placement and any perception that anyone had about a carolo hurler absolutely shattered by this guy i mean he is has has fine an athlete as you'll see physically i mean he looks a million dollars he is i'm not even sure of a million dollars pays for what he looks like but you know every every day he's in you can see there are he has he has the habits absolutely stacked right he's in there's there's huge work has gone into his nutrition preparation physically he obviously has worked quite a bit um the way he carries himself like kind of there's an obvious leadership quality about him and and even i always i always love watching teachers getting involved in extracurricular because i love extracurricular myself and and i just think it's such an important role within schools that you know how you behave within extracurricular is really like it sets a standard and it sends out a message to everybody involved in the organization james all came in and it was like he had been part of douche college forever and it was you know that's the kind of people we want in carolo now if we i have no doubt that like 15 james dials gives john kylia headache you know and i'm not i'm not i don't want to offend anyone else involved in carolo i'm by the way none of this is i'm not having a court of carol ga here i'm just saying these are the lessons i would see from from my research edetics and i'm sure lots of this stuff in terms of coach education facilities great and opportunities i'm sure all that stuff is happening already anyway but like that these are the lessons that you can bring from Irish edetics who you know a bit like carolo where we're a smaller federation within the wider federation of european and the international athletics federations but we're making success and some of that is in retaining people within the system like so you create the opportunities for james dial to stay with carolo for as long as as he can because i i think that i i mean i i'd hate against my age james dials but like i think a 25 year old james dial has something to offer to intro county you know um plus the way it's kept himself a hundred percent a hundred percent like i mean his his metabolic age is probably 18 uh you know he's he's just he has kept himself and so there has to be a solicitation for that he gets a like tamas bar is 31 we've managed to keep him in the system brilliant brilliant like can we do something similar in carolo are there lessons there in Irish edetics for carolo ga there's so much good work going on like i mean i i just i when i think back to the carolo miners uh and and at that time we with mikyo and like they were so well prepared everything was so well laid on and then you know you got down to wexford and you know something happened after four minutes and the whole thing was derailed in my opinion a little bit by that and again i was i was i was the most casual member of management that i was i was coming and going a little bit i wasn't there three nights a week yeah yeah but like it just all went wrong i remember i was standing on the field before the game against mikford with this really really impressive kid from from ballon uh i'm wondering here will i name them or not it's up to yourself daniel bulger was a chap's name he was injured and um he plays holland and football uh over that side the the county and we were the two of us were standing we were looking down at wexford and i i asked him and he's really impressive kid right and and i would say you know i do if if if if i have something that i skill set i bring to the party right i do think i need it to find leaders amongst teenagers right this guy is a leader i have no doubt he's going to absolutely drive on anything he's involved in he was injured we looked down the page at wexford i said what do you think daniel and he said i cannot see us not winning this game i said i'm the exact same and and that exact moment i was everything that we believed in and then just you know things didn't work out in the first ten minutes will we say and suddenly the air went out of the balloon and i wonder a more robust system maybe you know does that little bit of hassle in the first ten minutes do we weather that storm a little bit better because you know we've been there before you know and maybe the same in our eugenics uh there are being moments where like it looked like they were about to make a break too it just didn't happen you know i mean last year rashida and kira mcgeean were both four to the world championships and i know for lots of us in irish who were not going around for a long time we were like is that going to be as good as it ever gets and thank god both kira mcgeean and rashida have had you know their moments developing level i think rashida has a decade of moments ahead of her i think kira mcgeean has one more big moment coming in powers so like in carol ga you just kind of build out robustness in the system and you know you create the opportunities for us to go out there learn on our feet learn that god someday it's not going well but we still you know we still work it out and and that's that's what i think are the lessons for carol ga from athletic sirement i think that the retention of people within that system though is critical and like there's i used to always say about athletics i used to go to the county board meetings in gakenny and so i'm going to county board meetings in gakenny in adletics and i'm coming from the big club right and the big club from the town and all the country clubs yeah i can see you're getting angry about it there which are locking head on you you're like oh yes i hate to listen to the tone so you go to the meetings but i you know i used to try and diffuse the occasional row but i say look that's there's not enough of us to fall out there's not enough of us in carol to fall out like we actually need to try and get the whole thing pulling together and i'm sure we are trying i'm sure we are trying i'm sure we are trying i want to be very clear i'm not and the inside there at all that i i would know i need this but if you ask me what are the lessons for our carol ga from athletics Ireland court education facilities create an opportunities and i think they're they're the big ones that you'd like to see them bring and i'm sure they are yeah i i think the the athletic situation eradicates a lot of the bs around why we maybe don't achieve as much like i guess people would say it's a it's a it's a number scale is early not the carol athletics yeah absolutely is that fair comparison oh not a really fair comparison like it's a really fair comparison like uh like we are and the other thing just to go dominate it by our neighbors you know yeah so like all that sort of stuff i gotta go across you again i mean people use the narrative that i don't want sure what her to look and up to and i say that quote unquote right and that's changed a little bit in the past couple years with our senior horrors with some of those those that we've got literally a draw with little Kenny and gone back a few years ago the footwaters got some really good results as well like the one against clear with mustand outage being competitive with monenn being competitive with taron and all that but i don't know how much that is reason responsible for when you look at this particular example where there is literally zero tradition there is nothing to look up at full stop or didn't seem to be a whole lot no disrespect anyone that's ever gone before but like they weren't really looking up at something that would inspire them and i guess in many respects you could probably i'll go back on my word you could probably have played that being being honest about it i'll go back on my word and say right well they're not looking up at a holla but the point is first proof there that you actually don't need a holla to look up at in terms of success at that level to bring up the standard to bring up the levels now i think the flux and ga just from my point of view two things maybe there's people that maybe don't care as much as they should right and i'd be like yo will be all in or not kind of in and then of course you have the taron issue of okay courts which is you know in my view john a real blight on our games not what it should be about and unfortunately at at senior level in particular there's been propensities to go that route because we don't think we've got enough lads in house good enough now history will indicate that a lot of money has been spent and we're still actually not further down the line terms of our adult teams my view on it is keep the money give it to the right people build from the bottom up play the long game a lot of people won't want to do that but we will be any worse off i don't think so in the short term or in the in the long term i think we'll be a lot better off it's just me one of you i'm not an expert on either of you and i i i think i suppose from kc h it's also like you do you've got to have the financials as well like you know i mean you talk about like in in terms of the ga you know your financials company when you manage to bring in your casuals and i think they've done like karo ga in terms of its promotion has been superb in the last couple years and you've added something really really big to that and like the system probably needs you know um an independent observer not necessarily objective but certainly independent in that karo ga don't get to tell you what to say and so you can call it if you want and put like they've been you know they've been open to the fact that look this guy knows that he's ash let's get him in and not get him in but let's let's work with him let's work with him um i'm after getting lost now is where we were going oh no in fairness to pick you up on it like i think certainly from my point of view the opportunities afforded to me by by jardale have been kind of game changing for the left wingback and the relationships that i built as a result i'll be quite straight which i think under maybe previous guidance and i'll send for a p r o point of view but there was um you know i think i think there was possibly someone there before that maybe didn't really agree or didn't understand what i was trying to do yeah possibly took it a bit personal that might have festered into a few other people there as a lexing there's a perception of me which isn't true and i'd obviously i'd judge someone and the person you see sitting in front of you not with someone that tells you that probably doesn't know you that well and why have you saw anything going on i don't know but definitely uh Jorah understands that he understands the value of it he knows that way things are moving and he knows that like this form of media is the same as radio and newspapers you look at what the newspapers are doing they're now going digital they wanted the article up online yep you know pay was coming god i hope we don't have to do it ourselves but like i mean when you look at it from a broad speaking topic or point you see off the ball going behind the pay one independent the examiner i've been lucky enough i suppose we're local businesses come in and you know help fund this whole project but i do worry for them as well and it is always a small local business that have been kind to us you won't even get the chat to some of these big franchises and i'm sure they're good in other ways in in in in places like carol in terms of employment and all that but certainly for american point of view i couldn't tell you who you are what you are i'm going off topic a little bit but as far as the point is i do agree i think there is scope for fairness and at the end of the day john like i would like to think from my point of view that's girdling and people in carolgier know that you actually love carolgier the same way as you love your analytics and you love your carolgier as well and that's the place we come from it's not actually to put someone down it's not to carry a personal agenda you want the best of your county you want to do what you can yeah to make that happen and when people put party emotion basically and it's not different what you're saying with the minors that thing happened for them in the same but what what can you change without you can change what you feel about that particular thing and that can absolutely change a game really okay this has happened before trigger call it a buzzword just say either i don't know anything at all i'm looking up here mode right yeah mode just shout mode across the way it doesn't have to mean a mode of rondia mode means we're not going to be a mugs off next time ago i was in we're going to respond because we know this has happened before and our attitude can no be different a hundred percent a lot of different planes in there sorry for going off and around but i i think we want we had started on the idea the financials that like pretty much money like do you put your money into the outside coach or do you build the system up from the bottom and i think in our genetics the lesson is that it's it has they've built it up in the bottom in terms of attracting in there so like exactly what you said like i mean girdle has done a phenomenal job with uh with all the different social media platforms and with the promotion side of things and just the jerseys are half-time the jerseys are half-time the kids like i i brought uh last year for the tartan cup i i brought uh one of my children who plays a bit of football inculcany over to watch carlovers new york we were on the pitch afterwards she was blown away by the experience you don't get that experience necessarily inculcany like carlo is carlo ji is a stock that you can buy at a low level right now and for her has as as a punter like she's she's a carlo football fan right now she's not a carlo hurlan fan she's actively cheering on inculcany to beat carlo in the drawing game they're recently but but she'll cheer for them in football you know sure it was a big deal that we uh that we beat new york you know because they have a big pick uh they're a big spot like new york she recognized that she thought that was a great game but you know they get down the pitch to see the half-time draw she was like oh can i get out at half-time next time like yeah yeah we'll try to get out of half-time next time like all that stuff is brilliant brilliant and i and i think the jerseys and it's it's the smallest thing in the world but it's actually the biggest thing wearing the colors around all the time is just you cannot buy that like that is your walk and promotion and i suppose i go back to her takes again inculcany city harriers we have the streetsulcany and it's gone now for eight years the greatest marketing tool we ever had was the bespoke t-shirt and the t-shirt sorry it's not bespoke there so you have the logo it has this particular logo all the streetsulcany t-shirts have the same design the color changes year on year and there's a big ring rod into kenny and the ring rod is full now of eight different years of streetsulcany it's too it's like it's a walking advertising board for the event right carlo jae we want kids in jerseys i'm going to kenny city i know if i go if i go beyond a certain point in the city all elsey is dicksburg tops every child in the dicksburg area words are dicksburg top all the time and and like lots lots of them across it and i'm look the jay jerseys are so hot right now you know everyone's birdie jay jersey let's make let's make carlo jay jersey's hot you know it's uh that's these are simple things but this is how you get in your financials you get in your casuals and uh and suddenly you can put that money back in at the bottom of the system which i i would tend to agree with you kevin i think that's that's probably the way if you were looking at it from an objective system wide view you would say you'd put it in at the bottom what does that mean though for the current crop of players like that's that's the next question that you'd have to ask are we willing to take the hit for five or six years to build it that's you know and we've got to ask that question are we willing to take the hit can we do bush you know i mean i know it's yeah yeah you have to be selfish behind the horland because the sacrifices that are in it right but i wonder could you channel that selfishness isn't there right i'm getting at the end of my tether how do i guarantee i still make an impact when my time is going to an end or maybe i can be at the other end of the chain here yep and it'll give me okay not quite as close to playing but maybe closely you can get in building this whole thing and then it's always in controlling the finances because you can give money to anyone but the right person has to get it and the right people have to be brought in in order for the whole thing to grow which is so so important as well yeah can't just throw money away no no and and again it's there's no overnight success and like you know we with the business men it's right about the project we're great business men we do that we do brand literally multinationals you know really successful who probably if they can do the job themselves nor people that could come in and do this at the end of the day if needs to be done yeah 100 100 100 and again we don't have to go a million miles to see a model there's a model across the border on click any and there's you know there there are models that have been successful everywhere and you know we just maybe have to adopt some of that i think yeah we were talking maybe at some point as well i do think the schools play a big part in providing opportunities for players and and like again as the principal down in douche college like our tree holland teams this year made it to trees out denser finals all right and you can we can debate over grades all that whatever like the minute tree finals you know the first thing you do is you go off you give them a good a gear for that you know same i i was involved with the soccer teams down in douche college the last two years have had you know we made it under 16 final last year and then a lot of the same crop made the senior final this year that's in our little click any carol or league and the first thing i think you do is you you go and you get a bit of gear you know and and you put the you put the t-shirt on them and you reward them for it and you know you can see the douche college under 16 soccer final hoodie and he did a week down in the street in great domana and again it's a walking advertising for the school there's a bit of success the brand is out there you know that's all and if anyone wants to get a quarter sports or a good sponsor of ours a carol-based clothing company and they would certainly look after him and shame morn i want to talk to you i would come to not beg and i'm conscious of time as well i mean you could talk for hours of course but the crossover before i get to not beg stuff i'd care again being the prime example you know she refers kamogi after winning the gold at her name um you'll probably have the exact course she said she said about like it's actually the motor actually had a better quote the next day give us a quote okay so it's so Kira said about uh all when i was a wee girl in portafury playing kamogi i i'd always wait and run run through the gap right so you can see her she gets kind of boxed in and he was watching we're all worried she's she's not going to get the space to get to run out and she's just wait some wait some wait and uh the second british at least uh at exandria bell or bell or bell she floats a little bit on the bend coming into the 100 and jameriki was the big threat because she's an 800 meter specialist they had slowed the race to take care of this thing out of here a little bit and through the gap she goes and the motor said it the next day she said she could see the exact moment when Kira realized the gap was open because it was the exact same thing she used to make in kamogi that she'd see a gap in kamogi and head down and true in that goal and in this case head down through the gap and out to gold and uh so like we're so lucky in early that we have gala games and that adds into like this really rich sport and tapestry that we have like we like it's so unique and and but there's so many things that every kid should be playing as many sports as possible i always believe and and it should stay like i mean there should be no real specialization until until they're they're much later and then what you hope for and i hope for this as as a teacher and a principal and a coach and a parent i i hope that every every kid finds something that catches their imagination and to keep doing that as an adult and uh you know i mean that's that that's the hope but like that the ga definitely adds into the tapestry of sport in Ireland and even in terms of providing opportunities like it provides opportunities for you to wrestle with the puzzle in the middle of any sporting event so for kira she's wrestling with the puzzle and you know can you imagine the thought process you're out there running you know there's no coaches there like gets you and and your inner monologue talking to you but like imagine her inner monologue is reminding her perhaps of just wait for the gap wait for the gap and that's a message she has been given herself since she was ten years old playing kamogi and running in races etc etc so it does it definitely adds to the tapestry of the sporting uh the sport and lexicon here in Ireland. Rashida Adeleke uh her primary school last year when she she she's such a great run in the world's her primary school came her primary school from Dublin came out and had these lovely pictures of her like playing a common in one school final like and you know no surprise like i mean i i must have seen a hundred examples over the years no surprise that in school you know kids who were good at one sport tend to be good at all tend to be good at all of them but the other great thing in schools is that schools also gives everyone an opportunity to take part in sport and you know like when i was in knockbeg i've got to give full credit to to chris conway and brine staple and somebody's guys over there like was in knockbeg and at carol jade get a great credit here as well like the carol the carol school's competition at senior level was allowing chris and brine and the other senior football managers in knockbeg to let like to have three senior football teams so like in in ten years time some punter can be talking to someone he could say oh yeah no like i played senior football in knockbeg and maybe they're still involved in the club and maybe you know it keeps them it gives them a passion that they take on or into their adult life i think that's what schools sport can offer is something that they bring beyond school and you put it back into the community and again like it's it's all about that opportunity again like you know and incorporate carol schools because that is such a super little competition not a little competition at all such a super competition such a chance for you know for for everybody to get guys out playing football hmm better thing i want to correct before we go to knockbeg and it sounds like correct sounds with p-head is so way important about maybe just a challenge narrative around people have this thing with multi-discipline sports people that you know oh well i'm not not going to use from the they f-ed off and played to another sport what i would say is that you know they're obviously feeling the hate when the talent elects to go to the court that's not their preference right so if it is here and again as she goes it elects through um and her come on in club lose it port ferry wasn't it you said yeah i think yeah port like okay so there's the talent that you lose which is huge but what you gain is the profile right so the profile escalates the understanding and awareness of the club which you're trying to build also goes with it people see making in front of kamogi and understand there's a kamogi sorry an elects background as well obviously so is that not a good thing like does that not encourage and build profile for the club which you're trying to do because the talent will come and go with club will always need to be promoted and will always need promotion will always need a lift like you're not doing so i just think there's there's a bit more joint up thinking uh possibly involved i see pouring gum in the earth club yeah and you know everyone might not be a soccer fan would they know who he is and they're looking forward to like you know this guy played with us the whole up along and will likely maybe play a bit of june when he finished up in soccer so he's still contributing to the club you might have lost them through those years that you wouldn't like to have at his peak but what sort of a hop is the club got from it well they've got a huge hop because he references it the whole time the same as McGain does so it's not all completely lost i appreciate it's a big loss in terms of talent but i don't know i think it needs to be a bit more i don't know what's what's the term not to be as bitter when when when they when they choose to go or root that's not your preference i mean we're all feeling hard don't buy you when when they have to pick one i don't know is there anything to be said for that you know i i have a phrase for that in the harriers uh because obviously people in the harriers would give out sometimes at all they're they're only here to get fit for the hurdle right maybe that's true and so i've said to coach this different times yeah look maybe that's true but you have now for two hours a week so you've got a chance now to sell this thing to them you know and and i think that that experience that they get and sometimes sometimes we keep them sometimes they've landed in for holland now as you said pory gam is going to come back around to you so like kenny city harriers is not just athletics like i mean i talked about within the city like we would contribute to the culture and the social fabric of the city as well like when we are running the street school kenny we're looking for a hundred and ten volunteers and part of what i love about street school kenny is we always have a little bit of a party afterwards and items but you meet people that you haven't seen for a year right and maybe they were coaching you know maybe they were you know i i think it of one person here particularly like jerely knolland was a world finalist in 1995 and we mightn't see her in the club coaching all the time anymore but street school kenny uh cuz nor 5k the medieval mile she comes out again you know and and all these people they stay within your your community in your club and that's really important because they still feed in they still feed in and yes you don't have to be better about it you can let them you know but but when you have them like especially with with you know talent and and i'm making error air quotes there but when when the talent comes in you know instead of first going to a point where you're worried that you're only getting fit for another sport actually go and think you know what you're here having my sport now let's make this enjoyable and experience and as good a coaching experience for you as possible yeah great great all heartly profile built 12 games um everyone you know everyone it's it's a it's wider than like you know the 10 seconds of the hundred meters or the 90-minute soccer match or like you know clubs sports it's all it's a much bigger thing it's a much bigger so i think you take the fighting cocks um or just i'm playing football for the same club with Sean O'Brien okay he's back now so it's easier said but even six seven years ago just Sean O'Brien played for this club and i mightn't be in the rugby book Jesus you know what i see him on a big world platform or they can play for the same football club as him so you don't have to actually pick either just from that point of view it's not that you have to play in rugby to identify and to get a hop out with that yes or or gee yeah whatever the case might be realistic so anyway look this is a different point i better come to you on the not big stuff as in common not big principle and look as i said the i had a fantastic year out there i i love that i i certainly i feel like i i understood and got what the place is about um and i think one of those things for me ironically enough and not surprised with sport as well go on to the the lens psychologist games and loading up the bosses bringing them it was guys there that wouldn't even know a football i would look like and they were shouting as loud as anyone and that culture like there is it there is a serious culture out there and i guess maybe part of the reason why there's a a gravitation towards heading back that direction absolutely look i i have been a bidern great man for four years and uh and and i was in newbridge i was up in saying can't let's community college in newbridge is debuting for two years before that i love my job and i mean i and this goes back to and i start as a teacher i just love school i know it's really nerdy right but like schools are great pieces they are brilliant places so anyway knockbag i wouldn't have known much about knockbag even though i grew up in my shell i went to school in presidential cell i wouldn't have known much about knockbag until i arrived there but exactly the things that you loved about the place are the things that i loved about the place i love that community feel a bit like i mean i love walking down the corridors and there's you know there's there's pictures of pupils there from a hundred years back and and it's not just a hundred years like i mean that it's got a it's got a real it's got to make over in the six years since i've left so the building the campus is unbelievable i would say i mean even if i i hadn't if even if the community aspect of it wasn't pulling up my heartstrings like when you go back over and you look at the campus the campus is modern it's like you can see there's so many different buildings that have been put on but you can see the historical significance of every building right like this it's got such a cleanup it looks really impressive it's has high tech and modern school facility as you can get while still being out in the countryside with like acres of land around us um there's capacity for development all around the place and then you've got that unique like there's literally only one other school in the country that can say we've 230 years or something underneath us here and like my 230 years that's before the active union that's before the famine that's before world war one like i there's so it's it's before it's before it's just after the french revolution to be fair all right but like me know of people say the french revolution is the start of modern europe well you know it's only a few years after that that not big gets going so like imagine that as a contribution to the to the great revolution of course yeah yeah yeah at the greatest revolution of modern the bigger one uh the so yes i mean i was incredibly happy in greg namanna and but like when this when when the role came up like there just was there was something i could not not answer and uh so the license absolutely thrilled to be heading back um i can't wait to get stuck into it i i think i'm at a grace point in my own career and my own personal life to really you know push put put put a good few years of really really solid work into it and you know the more than my with the harriers like i am sometimes personally i do think a little bit about like you know legacy and like 230 years like i'm a drop in the ocean there but i really am looking forward to having to go and see what that drop in the ocean looked like as you say look at at first a lot of money are important to the place yes we've scoped uh you know to build and there's momentum there and there's you know feel good factor and i think your values will will be infectious i certainly enjoyed um then basketball wouldn't even it was there as well i don't know if uh if i had a four class i don't think that they didn't go out the whole lot of money it was plus my parents of fortune considering it was seven-year but uh basketball was only a good player and i i certainly felt that i guess it's the place value on the people around you there and to wear an S3 maybe recruit wisely i don't know will you be teaching as well are you walk around or um god that's a great question i don't really know the answer to that myself i would imagine that next year i am walk around and i love teaching and so i don't know great the manner i have been teaching senior history i've been coaching uh soccer teams so i i would imagine i i i i i'm not necessarily made for officebound principle yeah okay i i i and again of course i appreciate all there's the administration and there's there's loads of work to be done in the office um but for me what i love about schools is i love i love the bit a bit of bounce around it i love the energy in the school uh and i like i would i hope i contribute to a kind of a a cam energetic kind of uh you know infused the atmosphere in the place a little bit that everybody is everybody's getting something out of that so yeah not officebound definitely will be involved um again i don't want to step on anyone's toes i i can envision myself getting back involved in athletic somewhere i can envision myself maybe you know heading away on a busway team every now and then but for the next year i'd imagine first and foremost bending in saying where do i fit into the overall fabric of this because i has changed a bit since i left six years ago you know there's been big turnover in in staff and there has also been a massive change obviously to the building like you're just talking about possibly to find a school building one of the finest school buildings in erdent and like if just even if if anyone has an interest in like restoration in in public buildings like it is a model for how you take a space that has been existed as school for 230 years and you bring it up to the highest possible modern standards that's last and just very quickly i mean maybe you will want to be the the dictator of this particular thing but it would certainly serve in the outset it would be nice to be in a position where and okay when i use turbano grinsville maybe i don't really understand fully what that role is but for me i think where i come from is if you get that time to actually we'll have a look around and see what okay what those need to be improved that where are we strong and you need that i'm sure you're going to get that and then i know well what happened in your point of view from your point of view have known it is that after a while no no i need to go hands-on here because you need stimulation you know you're that type of person or high energy type right so after a while you can see what's what's going on where things need to improve and actually you go back to each and that's how why you visit pal an outfit but i certainly think um you know the first that's got the job but i genuinely mean that because i've been there during your time i think your your heart and your head is in the right place i think you can only go one direction under on your guns i wish you the best look and i certainly would like to think that if i could help in any small way don't hesitate to get in touch because you know the place does mean a bit to me as well so super absolutely delighted to hear that because like and again i do i remember when you came and you did your seven years you called it but it used to be basketball was uh do anything that was eligible for it's only your answer for it yeah but again i wasn't a past couple in school but like i did do 13 and a half years with john bane and i mean if you wanted to learn the value and culture the place well john bane would show you what the value and the culture the place is and part of the reason he would have been so keen for seven-year of kevin reagan to be on that basketball panel was that he would have felt it was part of his role to ensure that you were you were integrated into the school and you know what what's this guy interested in and uh there's there's a great athletics coach up in belvera college he has this great friends phil conway it was a it was a chore but uh to teach johnny greek and was first no greek but it was also no johnny and like to get kevin reagan working and not big we had to understand what was what was of value to kevin reagan and kevin liked a bit of sport so what's he eligible for let's bring him to basketball what's he like in the basketball john i don't know but sure look he's a big lad we'll make something open okay we'll have a go and so i think that that value in school still holds and i think that's something in not big they do really that big is always really valued the individuals and valued them within like a really strong culture really strong community so i'm hoping i can bring that one of my sport holidays i go around saying i got to play a college basketball and somehow i started on this team of superstars you know and you know i'm up there i know these strengths i wasn't a natural basketballer but it was pretty solid on the backboard yeah we're claiming was rebands to give it off to the guy then like to shoot it there would be a point guard or a center of what no i would we'd pass things on the backboard we wouldn't be pushed about and um feet daily and kinks in the lemons and they made the lemon all day long so good like that's just sticks with me like so yeah these are the little small am i saying like small things at the time yeah massive like the stick with the stick with your life so good well i'm glad and i hope i hope that's a student experience that we can start the replicates it's been a pleasure thank you very much and to your best luck are we thanks very - Very much Kevin. (whooshing)
