Eamon O’Shea will deliver one of the keynote speeches - ‘Being a GAA Coach’ - at the 2016 Liberty Insurance GAA Games Development, which takes place this Friday and Saturday in Croke Park.

Interview: Brian Murphy
 
O’Shea’s address will focus on what he believes to be fundamental questions any coach should ask themselves – why you want to coach and how you want to coach. He will also touch on coaching values, philosophies and how to relay these principles to players in the most effective manner, something he believes have a universal application regardless of the level a coach is working at.

A professor of economics at NUI Galway, O’Shea has coached hurling teams at all levels of the game, but is best known for coaching Tipperary to All-Ireland success in 2010, and later for managing Tipperary from 2013 to 2015. 
 
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GAA.ie: Can you give us a brief outline of what your key note address to the GAA Games Development Conference 2016 is about?
 
Eamon O’Shea: I’ll be outlining some of the things I have learned from coaching in the context of what you should be thinking about. Thinking about why you are doing what you are doing first. The fundamental questions of why you want to coach and how you want to coach. I think everyone is different in how they want to coach, but what I will be saying is that belief in how you want to coach – no matter where you get it from or however you develop it – it is important for you to have that self knowledge before you ever get involved with players.
 
When you are in there (involved with players) there are a number of staples that you have to think about. The presentation is really about that. What’s your philosophy? What are your values? What are the principles you want to transmit to players? How do you communicate your principles? How do you involve the players through leadership and so on? How do you deal with winning and losing?
 
It’s a summary, the things I have picked up so far along the way in my experience of being involved in coaching for a long time.
 
GAA.ie: Are the principles you are talking about relating to the elite level of the game or do they have a more universal application?
 
EO’S: I’ve been involved in coaching for a very long time, in a whole range of areas from juvenile right up to Fitzgibbon Cup, junior, intermediate and senior club hurling all the way up to senior inter-county. There are very few levels that I haven’t coached at. You learn a lot when you are involved in that wide range of levels.
 
It’s not just the elite level. I am coaching now at U16 level. Obviously, there is a big difference in coaching at inter-county level and underage level because at the elite level the players come to you as fully formed adults with their own views. At the same time, if you believe in technique as being the most important aspect of the game, the principles are by and large the same.
 
Even the principles of engagement with the player – even though it can be different at underage level – there are elements of that exchange that you would like to keep. It’s not a case of telling a player they must stand here or there. Even at U14 level what you are trying to do is point them in a certain direction and see where it takes them. You can’t control a player’s movement in hurling because it’s such a quick, random game but you can give them paramaters.
 
**GAA.ie: Enjoyment is something you frequently referenced even in the build-up to big games with Tipperary. Is it essential for a coach to keep that in mind when preparing teams?  **
 
EO’S: It’s not only fundamental for a coach, it’s fundamental for a structure within which you can coach. It’s not just down to the coach because you are operating within a wider environment. What most players want – whether they are U14s or senior inter-county players – is an environment where they are being pushed to certain limits. If they are not being pushed to those limits they will get bored or they won’t enjoy it. Mostly – be it in sport of life in general – the majority of people want to be the best they can be. If the environment is pushing them in that direction then they will really enjoy it. Enjoyment, in a hurling and coaching and hurling sense, is wanting to be the best you can be. That’s the critical thing about enjoyment – it’s not just about letting players do what they want to do, it’s challenging them. That’s central to enjoyment.
 
One of the things I will talk about is that at inter-county level I think we might be better served by having a head coach and a manager that are separate. There are advantages to the rugby approach, which allows more coaching to happen and seeing the coaching as being really critical and allowing more coaches to be developed. The development of younger head coaches is something I would love to see across all counties.
 
GAA.ie: Is that a view you have formed having worked as a coach with Tipperary under Liam Sheedy and then later as the manager?
 
EO’S: Yeah. We should never underestimate the importance of players and of supporting them. Sometimes the manager can try to do too much. With Tipp in 2010, the structure we had was really good and the space for coaching in that structure is very important.
 
GAA.ie: How do you reflect on your time as Tipperary manager? Is it defined by the defeats in big matches or do you take a broader view?
 
EO’S: You are terribly disappointed when you lose. One of the reasons we play sport is because it takes you to incredible highs and to incredible lows. I would have felt that being involved with Tipp. There is no doubt about it that when I look back, losing an All-Ireland final or a semi-final by small margins would have been very disappointing. I don’t think that disappointment goes away quickly.
 
At the same time, when I think about my time with Tipp, I neither look at the winning of the All-Ireland in 2010 or the losing of the All-Ireland in 2014 in isolation. What I do recall is that we were trying to do something: the way we wanted to play and the way we wanted to get the best out of ourselves in terms of the style we did play. I remember the process more than the winning or the losing. You must remember that how you set your team up, how you develop players and how you push yourself and others is also very important. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.
 
It doesn’t take away the pain of losing but most coaches end up losing more than winning and it’s really important to keep going and to retain a belief in what it is you want to do and to support your players. There will always be somebody to take things on and I am looking forward to watching Tipp this year, watching how they will approach things. You have to enjoy what you are doing, push the players and then look at things with a broader perspective. That’s how I feel about the whole thing and overall it was a really good experience for me.
 
GAA.ie: As a coach yourself, you must have strong opinions on what makes a good coach. If you were tasked with appointing a coach for a team, how would you go about it?
 
EO’S: Good question. I think a belief system is very important. What is the belief system of a coach as to how the game should be played? Then, does that match a county or club’s view as to how the team should be prepared? Don’t put coaches in place if you don’t understand or believe in their philosophy because there are going to be huge bumps in the road. You have to back them.
 
Technical ability is also fundamental. It comes from their experiences coaching and how much have they learned from those experiences. Some people can spend a lifetime at things and not learn anything so you have to be careful on that.
 
Thirdly, you have to be able to communicate on an individual and a collective level. Part of that is the ability to be calm because there will be days when things go wrong and the players then have to know that you are pretty strong in your own beliefs.
 
Off the top of my head, they are the areas that I believe are key and they are not too different to any other sport.
 
GAA.ie: Who are the coaches that impacted on you throughout your career as a player and a coach?
 
EO’S: You don’t reach my age without having a huge set of influences. In my early days at club level, Len Gaynor stood out as someone who you would be really inspired by. Then, Michael O’Grady, who was my minor coach with Tipp and at UCD, would have opened my eyes to the technical aspects of the game.
 
You end up being a mish-mash of things you see. The Offaly style of quick, sometimes ground hurling, full of quick movement made a huge impression on me. Then, the various teams Justin McCarthy managed would also have interested me. You learn all the time and even from other sports.
 
GAA.ie: Finally, do you think you intend to return to coaching at inter-county level at any stage?
 
EO’S: I am really happy coaching at U16 level at the moment! One of the things about coaching is that if you are working with a team and if they are willing to learn and you can communicate and get through to players, that’s the nub of it. That can be at any level. It doesn’t have to be on All-Ireland day. Sometimes, you can make a breakthrough with a young player and say, ‘Yes, that’s it. That’s coaching’. Very often that happens when confidence and trust is there. When you see players developing the confidence to make those runs and make those decisions, for me that’s the moment when the relationship between a coach and a player is complete. In a sense, the player is gone from you at that point because they have confidence to do it themselves, they are off on their own. The coach then has to just make sure the structure is right. You’ve done your job with the player, you’re now almost invisible. 
 
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Tickets for the 2016 Liberty Insurance GAA National Games Development Conference have now sold out. For more about the conference, click here.