Unwelcome Break

Whilst the various Championships at home start to heat up when the August Bank Holiday rolls around, the European scene comes to a shuddering halt. Brussels empties as fellas scatter all over the place which means training is a frustrating place to be. In fairness numbers never dipped below ten but when you dont have fellas consistently its hard to get any rhythem to it. You can't control it though so you just have to suffer it and try keeping things tipping over.

Tonight we had about 18 and lads were pretty well tuned in. No doubt they ate and drank too much in the last few weeks and are eager to shed it. We've done alot of ball work recently and done various drills to try and improve lad's concentration. Its one of the big differences in all of us to lads playing at home. The mind doesnt react as quickly.

If I'm not training myself, I find running them pretty boring so would rather keep the training moving. When fellas do the drills as they should they will get enough out of it physically anyway. Tonight was good, the lads were pretty sharp, surprisingly so since the lay-off. Still, when we changed the conditions of the games and drills, the first few balls were regularily spilled. We improved each time though and in the end it was much improved. Its good to see.

After wataching Cork yesterday, its easy to pick my theme in the build up to Copenhagen. 'Go and get the f**king ball'. Its as simple as that. Against Tyrone, the marauding Rebels went at every ball with real aggression and purpose. Even if they didn't win it they disrupted the possession in some way. A hand or a foot as my former trainer Humphrey Moynihan used to preach.

The only downside was a nasty dead leg picked up by Eoin. He probably has just enough time but it will be painful for the next few days. We have our usual situation with lads missing but we have a few back to balance the books. Its a new venue too so we'll all be looking forward to building on Munich and driving it on into the business end of the season.