Darragh Ó Sé: Form needs to align with fitness as championship starts to heat up

Beyond some seismic football shock this weekend – and it’s honestly hard to see one coming – most of the top teams will have a fair idea of where their championship is heading from here.

Some will already be thinking about what it will take to win the All-Ireland.

Given the way temperatures are heading this week, getting straight into the All-Ireland quarter-final is looking a lot more appealing: one less hurdle to jump, naturally, it also gives the top four teams a break the weekend after next.

They can pump all the water they can afford on to the pitches this weekend, but the ground is still going to be hard and it’s still going to be hot. That always takes something more out of you, whether you’re ready and prepared for it or not.

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The teams straight into the quarter-final also know if they win that, they are just one more game away from an All-Ireland final. Those teams playing in a preliminary quarter-final know they face into three tough games over three successive weekends if they are to make the big dance.

That’s a very different mindset. For some teams, three weekends in succession will make or break their season.

Back in the old days, before there was any sort of back door, Páidí Ó Sé had a good way of putting these things – even if his sums didn’t always add up. If Kerry were playing Cork in the Munster final, he’d say: “If we beat these fellas on Sunday, we’re only an hour away from an All-Ireland final.”

Like, forget the 70 minutes. He had it down to an hour, and he knew what he meant when he was saying it. Now, there were actually still two games ahead of us. But he put it into our heads we were only an hour away from the All-Ireland final. That worked wonders for us, it was a great way to get you excited about the reward at stake.

There are still some teams looking to find a little more rhythm and consistent form. Kerry, as I’ve said before, could possibly do with that extra game, assuming everything goes to plan against Louth this weekend. Which it should. But having backed themselves in a corner, they will get that extra game whether they need it or not.

Dublin will also want to find a little more consistency, even if they might yet go straight into the quarter-final. For the likes of Tyrone and Armagh, that extra game could be a positive. Galway are ideally positioned and look like the only team to have really found their form, ready for whatever test is put in front of them.

What also becomes more important at this stage of the championship is balancing the training and preparation, maybe rotating the squad a bit to make sure players don’t go stale.

A lot of the top teams would have gone away warm-weather training back in April or May. All that fitness should be well built up by now, so it’s really only about maintaining it. Managers will also want to sit down with the strength and conditioning guys, the coaches, the various physical trainers, and look at the mechanics of the schedule after the weekend. They’ll more or less know exactly what the needs are from here on. It’s gone so scientific in that way.

They’ll also want to be open to some compromise. Going back 10 or 15 years, on the very hot days, the warm-up would always be reduced. Even though some physical trainers like to stick to the same routine, you can’t always do that on a hot day. So the manager might have to step on some toes and say we need to recalibrate this – instead of a 20-25 minute warm-up, you go out and do it 12 or 14 minutes.

The other reality of training at this time of the year, in my experience, is that you could have 50 minutes of football, and some of that could be flat, non-productive. Then you might hit a 17- or 18-minute period where everything is helter-skelter, breakneck pace. That’s ultimately what stands to the team, and the guys in charge knowing when to pull the plug on that as well.

A big part of the manager’s role in this type of weather is looking at the training and saying “right, they’re well cooked now. Let’s go out and serve up the dinner”.

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There is also a balancing act for many of the teams. In most cases, the next game is the most important they will face all year. So most teams will be flat out. Some managers might still see a need to hold a little back, look ahead to the next game – that’s all part of their job. Only the players won’t be thinking that way. You want to find rhythm, find that sweet spot where everything is second nature. Unless you find that, you won’t win an All-Ireland.

Natural talent is one thing you can’t coach into players, and you see that from minor all the way up. But the way the game has gone, and it’s not just unique to football, the one non-negotiable part is work-rate. Any slacking in that department won’t be tolerated.

A long season can take its toll though. Look at the Champions League final last weekend, John Stones was out on his feet at the end. And we’re talking about players paid untold riches a week. But that can happen when you’ve gone to the well so many times, or there’s just no gas in the tank.

The fact this weekend’s games are all at neutral venues will make it more interesting, maybe a little harder to predict. Everyone knows there’ll be no easy draw come the quarterfinals, and that’s where form and fitness really need to start to align. Come out of that, and the potential for a shock is diminishing all the time.

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So, I suspect there will be a fair bit of apprehension about this weekend, some managers left wondering what’s coming next until all the results are in. That’s what you want in a championship, and I’m excited to see where the top teams are headed from here.