Where It All Went Wrong

The writing was on the wall way back at the beginning of September. I could nearly pin-point the night when I first feared for our Championship ambitions. We were doing a kamikaze and the body language suggested lads just didn’t want to know about it.

People have asked me in the last few weeks where I think it all went wrong. They’ve offered their reasons but more often than not they offer the usual ones about hunger but they just get under my skin. Those words are grand to use in a certain context but when you are analysing where it all went wrong, you have to get at something more quantifiable.

I look back to early summer and think of all the lads I’d meet in the gym. Competition for places was extreme and guys were mad to be looking for ways to jump the queue. Others were coming back from injury and working their way back. I’d say the only other fella I’ve met in the gym since September is Collins.

There were 10 training sessions between Budapest and Maastricht. I’m open to correction but I don’t think any ‘A’ player made more than 50% of sessions. That isn’t Championship form. We always had good numbers but that’s more down to the sheer size of the group.

With regard to those two factors, the finger firmly points to the players. Missing training is understandable but with such a convenient and well priced gym membership available, there is no excuse for not making up the work on the side. If you have put in the work, it will always come through in the clutch. You draw on the confidence that the work was done and the fact of the matter is, the group didn’t do the work.

One factor that was out of our control was the player turnaround. Back in Benelux, things were very competitive. You had Hudson, Paul Gavin and The Fridge giving the defence extra steel. There were days when guys were going so well that you couldn’t give lads enough game time. No-one likes sitting on their arse and that translated into serious intensity at training. I didn’t even mention Keary there as he spent most of the time out injured.

When you moved to the midfield and half forward line, you were adding in the likes of Laffan, Byrno and Pearce, three guys who were going well and brought many qualities to the team. Laffan just had a relentless work ethic and an effective, direct style. Pearce, when tuned in is a very effective midfielder who gives a lot going forward. As for Byrno, when he is going well, he is very effective as he plays totally to the plan. I mention these guys but then you had Shane Ryan, Griff, Andrew etc etc hot on everyone’s heals.

Finally, our style of play let us down big-time too. On Saturday, we tried to plough up the middle too often. If you put two lads in the corners of our end line with a piece of string and got them to walk to the middle of the opposition goal, they would create a triangle. Despite every single conditioned game we do at training focusing on bringing width to the game, we insisted on playing narrow, inside this triangle. This inevitably leads us to bring the ball into contact more often and thus turning over possession.

I’ve pinned a lot on the players there. That’s not to say selection wise we got it spot on. The occurrence/handling of the bus incident was a big blow in Munich. I think we made some bad selection mistakes in Budapest. In hindsight, when Alec missed his flight, I should have held Ricky for the A’s instead of allowing him drop down. He proved his worth that day to the B’s and in Maastricht to the A’s. We also got our midfield combination wrong. It broke up the half-back partnership with myself and Collins and that had been one of our most effective combos all year.

Injuries played their role too. My back got worse with every outing since July and Collins learned this week that the knee injury he carried since the summer was a torn cartilage.

In the end though, the fact of the matter is that the margins were close this year. Every game, except the group game in Munich against The Hague, we could have won. We lost no other game by more than two points. The Championship is a step up from Benelux in that every game is in or around the level of the Hague games. Some guys aren’t able to play at that level all day yet. We need to close that gap though and it can be done.