Panels Finalised

And so the last ball has been kicked in anger at training in 2011. We wrapped things up with a 7 v 8 match out on Toyota’s shortened soccer pitch today. With the Halloween parties going on all weekend, it was important to have one session to reset the minds before the remainder of us depart for home in the coming days.

The last three sessions highlighted a lot of the improvements we have made in the last few months. Our patience on the ball is much better, our foul count is under control and the communication has improved. On Saturday, Griff was pulling the strings, instructing guys about positioning. Giller has taken a lot of ownership as well and his talk has become more specific and instructive.

Following today’s session, we issued the panels by e-mail. This is a somewhat impersonal way of informing the group but it’s the only way you can ensure everyone gets the same communication. At home, you can get the entire panel together much more easily but here there are always lads here missing for work or personal reasons.

In the past we’ve never had any major fallouts over selection and that is because the lads understand the difficulties selecting panels. There is no one formula to do it. Training attendance, skill level, strength, speed, power, reading the game – they all play their part and in the end you just have to try to be fair to everyone and get the right mix.

Conan and myself tease it out over a few discussions and as Colin Byrne is injured, I ran a few things by him. He was putting the case forward for a couple of guys and there sure is a case. The counter to that is who do you drop? This was a particularly tough group to split and he recognised that.

The last three sessions threw up some dilemmas. Guys who had been underperforming pulled performances out of the bag to catapult themselves back into contention. Others were going very well but just simply timed their run too late in the year and faced too much traffic ahead of them for their position.

One of the toughest calls was Eoin Sheanon. He returned to Ireland in July but we asked him to put in a weekend transfer so we had him as an option. We have never brought in weekend transfers on the Championship panel but saw his case a little differently. He was with us since 2008 and was one of the top forwards in the competition, as well as managing the team in the first half of this year. His last game was in Lux when he bust his shoulder and we wanted him to get a proper opportunity for a send off.

However, the lads just kept on knocking over the last few sessions and we couldn’t deny them. I’ve been out with some on extra sessions, seen more in the gym working away. You can’t turn your back on that or they will not sustain that effort. It’s not just about Saturday, it’s about setting standards for the future too.

The temperature in the camp is just about right ahead of the weekend. So far this year we have got what we deserved. We weren’t far away in the last two tournaments but there was a gap that needed bridging.

We’ve worked very hard to close that gap and I’m certainly relishing the challenges we face at the weekend.