Jack O'Connor's column: Jack O'Connoron how managers try to keep players focused and build that never-say-die team spirit.

Nature abhors a vacuum. So do managers. The leagues are over. The championships are a while away. This is a very difficult period for a manager. Right now some teams are building to a championship and have had no match for five or six weeks.

Having no matches is tougher than having a run of games. Players go back to their clubs. They are away playing club matches, dipping in and out of the county team. It's difficult.

Players lose a little edge when they go home. The club stuff is necessary but it's a different focus. With a county team you try to create a professional environment. Clubs are a little bit more laid back. It's hard to turn a player's mentality up a notch when he comes back.

Keeping minds focused without games is difficult. You try it all. Bonding exercises. Weekends away. Training camps in the sun. All designed to get that "never-say-die" spirit that you want. You don't know if it's there until you hit a crisis.

Sometimes you see the arse fall out of a team during a season. You see teams beaten in the qualifiers by teams they should never lose to. Somewhere along the line they just gave up. There is nothing worse for a manager. He might as well get on his horse and ride away.

Atmosphere and team spirit are crucial but it's tricky chemistry. Everyone has to enjoy each other's company because they spend so much time together. You need a sense of fun, and a few jokers in the camp are no bad thing provided they know when to knuckle down.

The game is changing. The advent of the 30-man panel makes it virtually impossible for a manager to keep everyone's morale high. You have one team on the pitch and another in the dugout. Somebody is going to be unhappy. There aren't enough games to do the rotation stuff or act the tinker man (as Claudio Ranieri was known at Chelsea because of his fiddling with the team) but you have some chance if you reward form.

Sometimes you have to shake it up. We did that once a year in Kerry. In 2004 Paddy Kelly debuted in midfield in an All-Ireland quarter-final against Dublin. In 2005 we put Bryan Sheehan into the team for his championship debut in an All-Ireland semi-final. Last summer Paul O'Connor had a championship debut in a Munster final in Killarney. Each time the impact on morale in training was huge.

The weeks in the sun that teams take now will only work if they are well planned and well structured with good variety. Otherwise teams are just following a trend. There are risks. Fellas live in each other's faces for a week. That needs proper handling. You have to let them leave off steam in the middle of the week. That can have its own side-effects.

You do three sessions a day and hopefully players won't have the teaspach to be up to much outside that. Being a professional for a week can have a huge effect on mentality when players come back again. A huge part of professional training is rest and sleep.

There is the danger that training weeks become a chore for teams when the novelty wears off so you go to different environments. In 2004 we went to La Santa in Lanzarote. Last year to Browns Sportsclub in the Algarve. In 2005 we didn't go anywhere. We didn't win the All-Ireland either! I don't know! You hope for a benefit. Team spirit isn't tested until things go wrong. It's when the flak starts flying that people need to stick together.

The watershed for us last year was the Munster final defeat. We met in a hotel afterwards. I had no idea what the outcome would be. That afternoon we found out who the real leaders were.

There is a point in every season when a manager learns if he has the faith of his squad. Some teams just quit. That day in Cork was our rubicon.

I spoke to John O'Mahony late last year and he said he had the same experience with Galway in 2001. They lost a Connacht final and John gave them a week off. He said that only those who were interested need turn up after that. High risk but it worked.

If there is friction it will be magnified in a crisis. Adversity isn't a problem, it's how you handle it. Obstacle or a stepping-stone. Look at Tyrone in 2005. There were times when they were tested to the limit. Defeat to Armagh. Peter Canavan and Stephen O'Neill's red cards along the way. They stuck together to win a fantastic All-Ireland.

That was the result of more than a week in the sun but the sun trip is something everyone sees and copies. In the race to find an edge it has become almost compulsory.

'And another thing . . . '

I saw Jose Mourinho last week talking about Didier Drogba before the Liverpool game. Drogba was on one yellow card and Mourinho was saying that the Liverpool players would be chasing the referee around the place in order to get Drogba booked.

Pure cynicism.

This sort of stuff has been going on with Mourinho and the boys for a while. It's wrong. It's one thing for a manager to have a go at a referee after a game but before a game it is calculated to create pressure.

We haven't got that far in the GAA yet. Anyone can leave a few oaths at a referee after a game when tensions are high, but it's different in the cold light of day. In Kerry last year we felt that our old friend Billy Morgan ratcheted up the pressure any time we played when he cast aspersions on our particular style of play. It got under our skins which was probably part of the intention. Possibly the words were designed to raise referees' antennas. Maybe Billy did believe it.

Generally GAA managers handle themselves well in victory and defeat. There is an onus on us all to keep that part of the game. If we start showing disrespect to referees and opposition the whole system will break down. Rugby has got it right.

Players are brought up to respect the referee. Only the captain can question his decisions.

Thousands of kids watch us every week and they are picking up messages that apply not just to sport but to life itself. There is still some spirit of sportsmanship in the GAA and respect between GAA managers. Only we realise the pressures of our job. Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown etc. We understand each other, and you'd forgive a fella anything he says in those moments after a game when the blood is pounding.

I'd hate to see that change, We all want an edge but it's the stuff beforehand we have to watch. There'll always be managers who'll play the media like a violin but at the end of the day it's about honesty between us and then getting it right on the pitch.