Conor Hayes says he can overcome his lack of sideline experience, writes Ian O'Riordan
Conor Hayes starts his new appointment as Galway senior hurling manager confident that his lack of experience won't inhibit his quest to revitalise the county's hurling fortunes.
On Monday the Galway County Board elected to give Hayes the responsibility of managing the senior team, rather than give the incumbent Noel Lane a third year in charge. Though Hayes remains one of Galway's most successful players of all time he has no previous intercounty management experience of any sort.
"Of course it's a daunting task in that regard," he says. "But I am confident that I know enough about hurling, from playing and watching the game, to bring more leadership and balance into the team.
"As a player I also saw both sides of the coin, in that I've seen where things have gone wrong, and where things have gone right. I think Galway have lacked something recently in the last 10 minutes or so of big games, when they needed some stability just to hold down a game, or pull away. That's the kind of thing I'll be working on."
Hayes captained Galway to back-to-back All-Ireland titles in 1987 and 1988 - with 1988 being the last year the county reached such heights. He received another winner's medal in 1980, and has loser's medals from the 1979, 1985 and 1986 finals. Hayes was involved in two other finals as a substitute.
He has gained some managerial experience working with the NUIG team, but along with his chosen selectors Pierce Piggott and Gerry Dempsey, Hayes intends to keep things simple.
"It's not an Irish rugby team we're taking over, where you have backs coaches and forwards coaches. It can all look a bit complicated, but the simpler we keep it then the better for everyone.
"But one of the main things I'd like to improve is the stability within the team. The hurlers we need are definitely there, a lot of very good players, but it's a question of getting the balance right between the training, and their attitude, and other things like that.
"And we are new to this in that none of us have looked after any of these players at minor or under-21 level. So I think we are coming in from a different angle. Most of what we'll be doing is the same as what was done before, but we will do some things differently, and maybe that will trigger some new momentum into the team and take them that step further than they've gone so far."
Dempsey comes from a highly qualified PE background and will focus on the physical training, though Hayes admits that planning their exact strategy only starts now. "There probably won't be a lot done before Christmas. Right now we'll be trying to organise a panel, and setting out training schedules, but I suppose the appointment has come a bit late to get anything major done before Christmas.
"All the serious work will be done after that, through the months of January and February, and hopefully we can get a bit of momentum going through the league. And we'll also be looking to identify a few players that might be leaders within the team, and could give them that extra little bit of impetus. To me it's about those final 10 minutes of big games, when the stronger willed players will nearly always come through."
Hayes isn't making any great predictions of what he can do within his two-year term, and whether he'll go on any longer. "I'd be hopeful of making the big breakthrough within the two years. Of course it may take longer, but we'd hope to at least take it closer to the breakthrough for whoever comes after us.
"Right now though, I must say I'm very excited about the position. At times I thought I'd never be interested in it, but when the opportunity came up I took a serious look at it and decided to give it a go. I had been involved at the highest level many years, and so it was getting harder to stay away from it. In the back of mind I always felt there would be a time when I'd go back to it, and that time is now."
