Unlocking the Secrets of High-Performance Coaching: A Deep Dive with Jason McGahan

Music. Welcome everybody to another episode of the Mike Quirk podcast, where we try and scratch a little bit below the surface of coaching and see if we can find ways that we can all do it better.

I want to start off today again by saying a huge thank you to all the people who continue to share it around the place and spread it around on social media and on your WhatsApp groups and your coaching groups within the clubs. To the people who have donated and have left comments on Spotify or on Apple or who shared it there, subscribed and liked it. Every time you click on it, it gets more ears on it.

And invariably, more people that listen, the more people that are tended to donate to a very, very worthy cause. And again, a shout out to Louise Quill and the Tiernanog Orphanage who do incredible work in Tanzania.

And instead of, you know, putting this behind kind of a paywall, we're asking people to find value in the content And to make sure you find the link to the donation page, it's in the podcast description or on my social media at Mike Quirk, and you can put in a couple of euros there and it's all going directly to a very, very worthy cause. So that's that done and dusted. I'm delighted today to say that I'm joined by a man who he wasn't eager about coming on.

He wasn't sure it was something that he was overly comfortable doing, but I'm delighted to say that Jason McGahan has, has made me his, his first official podcast that he's actually been a part of and he gives us a brilliant look and a brilliant insight into his role as a performance manager with Kerry G from top to bottom and involving development squads and all the way up to senior intercounty both codes so I think there's a lot here for coaches

to take out of this a lot of it for clubs to take out of it whereby you can improve what you're doing without huge investments of finances which obviously are are not are not realistic for most clubs so again make sure make sure you listen to all of it we really get into the development squad stuff at the at the later stages of it and and i think there's some really really good stuff in there be sure to let me know what you think and and continue to share it around enjoy.

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Okay, Jason McGahan, thanks a million for your time, man. Really, really appreciate it. I'm delighted to let everybody know that this might be your debut in public speaking and podcasting, man. So I'm delighted to say that you chose us to be your first one. Yeah, definitely. It's definitely new to me. I've never done. This is my first R8. For sure, it's a good cause anyway. For sure. First of many, maybe, Jason. Yeah, first of many.

Maybe, Jason, just for the people that aren't familiar with you. Obviously, we know each other well, particularly in the last couple of years of being involved with Kerry. The accent probably doesn't associate people with you and Kerry and Kerry football. Obviously, Jason is based at Armagh, like I would have mentioned in the, or not based at Armagh, but from Armagh, and we don't hold that against him.

But he's been involved with Kerry for over 10 years, and he's probably taken on a slightly new role in the last while. Maybe, do you want to just kind of walk us through that, Jason, and where you came in terms of your education and that kind of stuff? Yeah, from Armagh, originally from Armagh, from a small rural part outside Armagh, the city itself, called a place called Tully Soren.

Now, growing up for me was about playing football and it was kind of from an early childhood that my father was ingrained in the Gaelic football, that we traveled the length and breadth of the country when I was a child, going to games, everything else. And even to the point there, like my first old Ireland was in 86. Right. And it was nice that... Going to that game and remembering that game. And we made it nearly like a traditional weekly or annual get-together for ourselves.

Every year we'd go to the All-Ireland from 1990 right up to the present day. So it was something special with that 86 All-Ireland that I kind of knew myself, this is something I want to do. Even though I wanted to play football, that's what I meant I was into. So it was the love of playing football that basically got me into going towards, into what I'm doing now and coaching and working with people. And I wasn't going to school to go to school. I was going to school to play football.

And that was right through from going to, from CBS to going to St. Potts secondary school to go to the Grammar, going to Jordan Sound. All I wanted to do was play football. So I kind of, it wasn't until, I'd say I'll skip on a few years, but it wasn't until about, as in my mid thirties or something, I've been around that time, I decided to go back to college. So I was a mature student, I went back and done a master's in UL.

And from there, I met some good people. I met Keanu Neal, he was a lecturer from mine then. And we kind of enjoyed it, enjoyed being back in academia. I was never that, as I said, one for school, but I enjoyed it and tossed the idea around doing a PhD around the area of basically workload, training load and sports science and looking at it. So I threw up a proposal and sent it to four provinces to try and see who would take it on and try and see if I get some funding for it.

So it was Eamon and Keane here in Cary that put their hands up and said, yeah, we'd like to talk to you. So, you know, you can see yourself that being from the next, a small rural place called Tully's Soren, they get a phone call from Eamon Fismore asking to come down and have a chat about... The proposal of being and doing a PhD along with Keane, you know, so yeah, for me, that was no, a no brainer for me, you know, so I took it on and we started the PhD then in 2015 and it lasted four years.

Now in between that, then Keane got, took the job in Kildare and I went to Kildare for three years with Keane, you know, so it was up there and then it was literally two weeks after. I finished my PhD and handed in and done my Viva and everything else and done my corrections that I had offered a job in lecturing. I was offered another coaching job and then I got a phone call from Chiari to ask would I come back?

And I thought to myself, wow, this is something like, you know, one, I was thinking about going into academia again and going on to be a lecturer. But I thought these type of gigs don't come around too often. And, you know, I could always go back to academia or be a lecturer, but I thought to myself, I'll definitely have a good crack at this as something, you know. So, yeah, so I met the boys, met Tim and the boys, and we decided we'll come down.

And, yeah, I started in 2000, and it's actually going to be now six years now, so it is. So, 2019 was the first season, you know, so, yeah, and I've been here ever since. I didn't realise actually That you You only started You only started the Masters Kind of in your In your mid-thirties So you were You were.

Yeah You were rambling For a few years I was Be honest Be honest Greg I was always coaching I was always involved Like Even with my own club I was I was player, player and manager when I was 25, you know, and that's just what it was with that, you know, when you're in a real small club, that's just what happens, you know, and at the same time, I was also helping a good friend of mine, Adrian Clark, coached the Pierce Oaks in Armagh.

So I was doing, bouncing in between the two, still coaching, still playing, really enjoying it. And actually it was kind of, I was working with Armagh and development squads and worked right up towards minor level with them. And I was kind of setting myself right, where's my career going? You know, and I always kind of, I would say I'd be a shy type of person, you know, whereas I wouldn't put myself out there as much. But I kind of quickly

realized that people aren't going to come to me. I'm going to have to go and do something about that. So I looked at pursuing, looking at, right, I had my own gym. I was working in the gym. RMI were actually training in the gym at the time. You know, so, yeah, Ciarán just literally took over the gym or took over at the time. And Julie was in training them. And so they were in the gym and I said, right, I was like, where's my career going at this point?

I said I'll go back to school Interesting man, I probably took on my own masters Around the same age You kind of just stagnate a little bit And want to do something more To get a bit more knowledge And a bit more information And right now Jason Your new title would be the high performance manager Is that right? Our head of high performance Which one is your Which one is the fancier title Oh yeah. I'm not one for I'd say when I first took the job, it was head of Land of Performance and.

I remember maybe it was, I always had in the back of my head that we're going to see myself in five years' time. And this is where I see myself in five years' time. I want to see myself as the head of high performance, high performance manager is what it's known as. But that just kind of inspired or kind of took on a role itself more or less after two or three years. It was technically doing a lot of the job already.

And then eventually then the county board, it was two years ago they said, right, this is what you're doing, it's right, you know, so we put that in place and then we kind of looked at, like at the minute we're in the middle of doing like a strategic review at the minute, with Ross Carey, GA They're very popular in GA history, a lot of them gather serious dust on different shelves but yeah, that's where different yeah yeah this is where as

i said i said like you know you get these lovely glossy boots and books and stuff out there but i want to try and put something else to it and put it and we looked at we're looking at over this last year and a half maybe two years been kind of putting together a high performance model and with the high performance model it's a it's been tweaked it's been changed it's came back it's but we're we're getting closer to what we can see is overall the overall model.

And we're aiming to have that in place within three years and that's going to be exciting to see you know so it it'll hopefully come to life and not just be a nice book on the shelf yeah, and without getting into the specifics of it obviously Jason but like that is obviously something that would encompass you know from your senior inter-county teams at board in all codes all the way down through your kind of underage teams and development squads and stuff is it or Oh, it is, yeah.

It's more or less from the top down. So you're looking at, but it's not just what we're looking at now. I've been fortunate now. I'd come across, I've been looking at this now over two years now and high performance models in different organizations and different sports and different things. But looking at one that is fit for purpose for KerryGA and fit for us, you know.

And I came across a student that's doing a PhD in the area at the time and I was questioning him and then I was interviewed part of his PhD and then we kind of worked and I've been collaborating with him with his PhD. On this you know and I've came up with a model that is kind of inclusive of everybody okay so it's kind of the big thing for me and what stands out is that we're all sharing the same vision we're all going the same direction and that it it's not just my

vision or anybody like it's the carry is kg's vision it's the people of within carry's vision and only that they share the same vision on the same internal motivation will everything else be pushed along and driven you know so the idea is then we're looking at the vision but then we've got a mission and we've got our objectives and the big thing around that is like what i call the three c's that are in the like you know it's a big thing is around communication it's like sharing with each

other what each other is doing like we've got great people here in carry working and carrying working in different aspects of of creating high performance but we tend to not come together and talk enough and communicate what has been done yeah so but the.

Big thing around the model is that it would bring up the life is basically the culture the culture and the values and the philosophies of what carry are about you know so what the model what we're talking about making might fit make might fit for carry but making be fit for somewhere else somewhere else You know. Like you've heard a lot of stuff that's been bonded around about philosophies and beliefs and the legacy and the All Blacks.

And, you know, what the All Blacks do doesn't mean, you know, you're going to do in Chiari. There's no point trying to enforce that on something else. So what really has to drive that is the vision and internal motivation of the people within Chiari. And when we're talking about that, we're talking about everybody from the coaching. We're talking about everything from sports science to medical. We're talking about even people here in Curns or Fistorial Stadium facilities over in Osnac Park.

You're bringing them together. You're bringing the structure, like I said, the county board, the organization itself, the key stakeholders in it. But the big thing, one, is that we tend to forget is we have to take in the support for athlete support. And that's another area that we're pushing at the minute. and really looking at. Like I mentioned, it's not just about the athlete, it's about the people that are working with the athlete, you know.

And so the model we're trying to look at is done in other countries and other sports at the minute. It's been trialled out. It's kind of new and it's a new approach to sport, but it's like a person-centered approach. It's about everybody is valued within it.

The model, it's like not just the athlete but your staff member your volunteer your person that's looking at facilities your person that is coaching the under 14 development squad your person that's still your club person and organisation structure it's everybody, it's a lot of people yeah.

I've already touched on a wee bit of work this week was that the executive had asked me to draw up like just how many players do we actually have in through our squads and how many staff is actually working directly with them in the back room and it wasn't until we put it together we looked at we have over 600 players really from 14 to senior that are in squads at the minute and that's both that's football and you wouldn't like you know it's over 600 and the staff

that are looking off them back room a part of back room and looking off them and a lot of them are volunteers and staff members and everything else but you're talking about 130 or 135 of them right you know what i mean and that's just that's just one part of the jigsaw yeah i mean so it's a like that's from 14 to senior both both codes you know so it's huge huge that's huge yeah so that's that's interesting and even as you're talking

there jason you know and and i know i'll get on to the other stuff in a bit but like you're you're and you kind of made reference to a couple of times about the other people, the coaches and the support people, the volunteer coaches, everybody else. Like we always hear about kind of, you know, the player pathway or the player development or the player support.

Like you've kind of touched on a couple of times there about like, we don't really hear a whole pile about coach support or coach development as much as the, you know, the player welfare piece is always the most prominent. But like, it's interesting to hear you talk about the other people of that Chicksaw as well, you know?

Yeah so the the you know not just putting this model in place but the key the three key areas that we're looking at as part of my job is like if you're always building support teams you're always monitoring them support teams but it's developing them support teams and the big thing for us is like you know we're looking at the minute is that just as the athlete needs like you know, it's like a player pathway, the coach needs a player pathway.

And I'm actually grateful that we've got a county board that really backs this in a way that we have been backing this over this last three or four years, that we've really put this in place, that everybody is valued within Kerry that we push on CBD.

And we talk about players having like, you want to educate the players and get them to grow and everything else but we need our coaches to grow as well they need that growth mindset to grow as well and for me the big key thing for me when I first started the job was better coaches better athletes and if we look after their coaches and that's not just through CBD but also the well-being and health of our.

Coaches as well like you know like for me it's like funny there was just a couple of weeks ago there was a talk on the Bison Thurlis.

We're doing a talk around, and Joe Conner was involved with it, around the mental well-being of the coach. We talk about our well-being for the player, but what about the coach? What do we do there? What support mechanisms do we have in the place?

The big thing for me is that making sure that the coach feels valued, fees that they're they're being given like you know looked after in terms of CPE and everything else that them in turn will give back you know and like for me as a shot in the right shot that players are taught to it's like if I feel if I'm feeling the pressure. And from the outside and away from the pitch and everything else and coming up again. But if I feel it, well, then the player is definitely feeling it or even more so.

So we do, we need that support there for both player and the coaches. So we're big in, at the minute, we've started coach education with our S&Cs. We're looking at our football coaches going through programs at the minute. We're looking at upskilling our physios, upskilling our medical team, upskilling our nutritionists and making sure that even there's recently, like John O'Connor is now head of nutrition for KGA and he's just let me start a PhD at the minute.

And it's really looking at that pathway that we're looking at and developing it. So it's about always trying to make sure that we're building not just the athlete, but we're growing our coaches and we're looking after them. Yeah, that's interesting, man. And you know what? It's obviously a brilliant way to go, trying to make sure that you're developing and valuing your own people and get them to a level where they're delivering the really top stuff that you can possibly hope for.

So it's a big project, though, man. Yeah, it is. It is.

But it's exciting. It's something new. It's something different. And it's a model that it's not just around the athlete. It's a human development model. And at the end of the day, it's like you want not just the athlete to feel safe and personally valued and morally supported and empowered. And hopefully that, you know, they get something out of it. But same thing for the coaches and our staff and our volunteers, that they feel the same, you know.

And yeah, so I'd say something else. Huge, man. Yeah, that is. That's an exciting kind of thing to be involved in, definitely. And putting together. But it's just, it is. It's a big body of work. Like getting kind of into the, like when you talk about 600 players there, Jason, that's an incredible kind of a number.

And obviously your role primarily is in terms of overseeing the kind of athletic development or that physical side of it, as opposed to maybe the football side of it when they're on the field. Is that fair enough? Yeah. Well, you see, so what we're doing, part of the model is then we've already kind of started the model over this last year and a half. So it's spelled off multidicimary teams within a team. Right. So basically you will have, for example, John O'Connor is now the head of nutrition,

but he's got a community of nutritionists with him. Right. They're helping him develop the long-term athlete development plan with him. So, you know, you've got Kayla and you've got, then you've got also the students that are involved with us in placement and interns as well. But there's a number of nutritionists that are built in there. Same as the S&Cs, we've kind of developed like a community of practice around S&Cs that they're working together.

You know, for example, the first time I came in, like the S&Cs, that's the first area we kind of worked on was that the S&C, they all knew each other, but the main area S&Cs and the only 20 S&Cs weren't talking to each other and the seniors weren't talking to anybody.

So it's about getting them in their room and maybe getting them working again and with one purpose that they all work towards like an accreditation with the UK and we're constantly evolving that and working with that. But now you're starting to get people in their rooms and same as the football coaches, it's about getting all the football coaches in their rooms, it's about getting physios in their rooms and get them talking and engaging.

And then when, like, you know, when you've got them 600 bodies of players to work with and both set codes, then you've got people that are working together and are communicating and are talking. Like, for example, like you'd be talking like different things that'll be sharing, like, you know, help with different testing days or profiling days or things out there that come together. But those workshops and CBDs, in-house workshops, we'll have conferences that they tend to attend.

But we're trying to build them, we teams, so the athletic development is Podge Murphy's over the athletic development from 20s right down and basically his job is to oversee the interns and placements, but also look after the teams and get them up and running, you know, in both codes. So we've got that in place and then you've got, you're looking at, we're looking at possibly then Paul Flanagan, the Clare Hurler that won the Ireland this year.

Paul's been working with his last two years now. So he's leading the long-term multi-development plan around sports sake at the minute, delivering it right across the spectrum. So we sat down along with Tony and we came up with a pathway that, what does that look like? Basically, so they don't get the senior and never envisioned having a sports site before. They've already got some type of pathway through that.

The next one is Managal. So we're working that along with the Bonds here with Donegan and the Bison. Yeah, so we're slowly getting there with the multi-disciplinary teams. But now we've got a lead in them teams. Yeah, I was thinking you might have a little bit of downtime at this time of the year, Jay. Yeah, but that's a busy schedule. Yeah, so this time of the year, people would say like, you know, but it's this time of the year, this is where you get your coach education.

This is where usually on a Thursday evening, I'd have the diploma group on, S&C group on doing a presentation or in-house stuff with them. You've got Saturday, I've got full day of the coaches, the football coaches coming together and learning two modules around planning and activity design. And then Monday nights are different in another module around coaching philosophy, you know, so it's, yeah, there's a lot of this going on at the time around courses

and different things. Yeah. And like, as you're talking now, Jason, right, obviously I'm like, I, we have a lot of people that listen to this that are, you know, there might be an under 10 coach with a Gilling football club or an under 14 soccer coach or an under 18 basketball coach and all different, all different, you know, codes and all different sports and all different age groups and all different levels of coaching ability.

Maybe some parents that are just starting out for the first time and then other people that have been coaching for 20 or 30 years and different things. And as you're talking, I'm thinking about all those people in their clubs and how, like, because what you're talking about is you're operating, obviously, at a professional level with a big organization, with a huge number of players, with a huge number of support staff.

And some of these people obviously have far less players, There's, you know, far less support, maybe not as much support from the organization in terms of the committee or whoever. But how can, and this is a big question, but how can all these kind of clubs kind of get that idea of, you know, high performance might be a big term for people involved in underage sport, but even just the kind of elements.

Like you're talking about supporting the players and supporting the coaches and the communities of practice where the different age groups are talking.

Like how can clubs at a lower level kind of integrate some of those kind of elements if you know what I mean. It's a good one alright it's a good question yeah there's no quick answer I'm just trying to think of someone that's listening to this and they're saying okay well how can I get something out of that now and how can that benefit our club or our team you know what I mean yeah I'll come up with a couple of things one is so like.

Even there, just as two days ago, a club has contacted me to ask, you know, about strength conditioning or ask me to about, you know, coming in, but I come in and talk to, you know, them or do something. Yeah. And even my own club, every time I get home, I do something with them. But the big thing for me is there's only one way to doing it.

And that's looking back, even simply, it's a tech one thing out of what I just said about that proposal is looking after the people within the club, look after people that are doing the job anyway. And if they've got a general interest, their internal motivation is the club. Is what, you know, so invest in them people, go and invest.

And, and if it's, if it is an area of strengthening or if it's an area of football, or if it's, you know, find, find a course or find them something and, and go and offer it to them so that they in turn will give something back to the club but also it'll be sustainable. It's not just me coming in and giving a one-off talk. Yeah.

You know what I mean? And then they're self-driven, they're self-taught, they're self-done themselves, you know, and something similar we've done in Cary now, we're now starting to make inwards towards our clubs and our schools, in S&C and we're starting to do, this year we're starting to work in with our school coaches and our football club coaches is that we're giving them back. Like, you know, they're doing a diploma, our SSEs are doing a diploma in strength and nutrition.

And basically what happens there is we offer it to the schools and the clubs and the school and the club will put the candidate or the person through it and fund it. We get it. We had KGS heavily subsidized it. Okay. But we run it. And what they do as part of that course is they go and deliver a 12-week strength edition course for the club. Okay. So in turn, they're giving back, but then you've got that point to go to within the club. And it's self-sufficient. It'll run itself, you know. Yeah.

Like clubs, you know, are tight with budgets and everything else. But going and getting outside people with that different motivation to come in within the club, you're better looking at that person. Why is that person already in the club, working in the club, and doing it internally because he's got that internal motivation to do it. So go and invest in them and look after them. That's the first point I'd say to the clubs. And I've said that to my own club as well. So it's not new.

The other thing I'd say, a bit of advice I'd go, is that GEA actually have come out this year and I've been fortunate enough to be part of a steering committee or to be a part of it, that they're launching their new course in athletic development and it's their level one course. So it's been, it was actually just launched last week, but.

In the document, it gives that there's eight planning principles, simple eight planning principles that are really key nuggets for, you know, any club coach, just pick up the manual and see it. It's in their 2030 vision. But the problem is there's another lovely booklet that's now sitting on some shelf somewhere. So it's about getting them off and getting that, it's about communicating that down.

But there's eight nice planning principles there that go through a nice wee part about what I'm talking about, that fact and everything else. But also, it actually helps a big, one of the key part of the principles is to educate the player around looking after themselves and giving them that, for me to look after themselves. But also, by giving, educating the player, the player then will turn around and communicate it back to the coach. And that's not just the coach in his club.

That could be the coach in the school or the coach at county.

Are the coach of another sport so get them engaged in that and get them educated around that that'll help them to kind of talk to the coaches a little bit more and explain them what they are actually doing as well what did you what do you say the name was that was again jay it's the 2030s vision that crook parkham launched their launch last year it's it's a nice document and i've i've been sitting on the steering committee now for the course for level

one with Des Randallways and Martin Kennedy is driving that from Cropark but definitely it's definitely worth looking at and looking at just simply like you know how do you go about delivering an athletic development program you know and that's contained in the document that kind of yeah it's from grassroots right up through it's right from they spell it out from club development squads to elite level you know and the vision is to have this out there and running and.

Along with the course itself the like development course you know so yeah so that's definitely something people should be should be checking out and have a look at if there's that kind of quality of information there you know oh yeah definitely definitely and come here just in terms of like again staying on the kind of young coaches working with kind of younger athletes we'll say in obviously the GA is the context that we're speaking of like from an

athletic development point of view Jason just and obviously we're recommending that people go and deal with people that are knowledgeable in this area obviously not people that are maybe coming in for their first time and they try to do things but what are like for the younger age groups what are some of the kind of priorities or some of the things that coaches should be kind of try to focus on for those age groups in terms of looking

again long term at a young players kind of development or physical development you know There's a nice infographic. I can picture it now in the booklet.

It's about, you know, about a fact of alignment and where does it try and start? And something that it's key with my own coaching philosophy is like, we have to get the person to feel what it's like to be in that position first. You know, get them in the position. And then once you get them in the position, they must get comfortable in the position. So for me, it's a lot of the thing when I'm talking about is getting comfortable, being uncomfortable.

Once you get that, then you're moving in there to the position. And then you start moving down to the position and then you start adding load to the position. You know, and that's what, if you can kind of pitch, you're kind of walking before you're running, before you're sprinting, everything. But a couple of things to look at, you know, is if you're talking about integrating like sports science into a club grassroots level, you could easily start off by looking at.

Like we'd use an app there called RIPT and it does a lot for ourselves, you know, in terms of monitoring all our players, giving them a passport of once they come into the system, that passport carries right through, all right? But even breaking down the likes of reps for club level, simple things of monitoring their, like, you know, you could use RPE, RPE, session RPE, just looking at workload, but simply getting them to do a weekly workload out on the calendar of what their week looks like.

That'll help the coach to educate them, go, geez, right, okay, you have a match on Tuesday, but you've also kind of have a match here with us on a Wednesday, you know, and you're going to be doing two high-intensity sessions back-to-back within 24 hours, or even sometimes maybe doing two high-intensity sessions within one day. So, they simply just log in a weekly report and that can be done, that can be done on Rep, just by using that.

Using a session or a PE can also just, you know, get them educated around that as well but again and for the people jason that aren't familiar with rpe just sort of oh yeah yes so a session rpe is it's it's it's an like it's an internal load that we look at is how the person is perceiving the session or the workload they've just done so for example how it works is that.

That a session, you can mark it at a 10, 1 to 10, 10 being how hard it is and 1 being as easy it is, and then look at how long that session being. So for example, if you'd done a session and it was. 100 minutes, I'm just using 100 because it's simple to calculate, it's 100 minutes and the RPE was 8, but then it's going to be 8 or 3 units that they're talking about. So that's his load and such.

And then what you can start to do is then you start then watch for, if you Say, for example, you planned a session and you said, oh, this is going to be it tonight. This is going to be it tonight. And you've got, even for your talk set, yourself and yourself and yourself, Perky, go and do the same session. You may give it a six and I give it an eight. All right. So there can be differences in that. But whereas you could be saying to yourself, oh, well, that's where I say it, I say it's six.

So you weren't pushing that person, you know, as hard as you wanted to be. But then again, there's different individual characteristics. It could be different. You could be a bit fitter than myself. And down it'll be a bit easier. So you could. But even that's a very good learning thing for coaches though, Jason, like the perceived exertion. And that's a very common thing. You could plan out your session and think,

okay, this is going to be a middle of the road session. Maybe this is going to be a six or whatever. And suddenly, even just asking the kids after the session, they might say, Jesus, that was an eight or that was, you know, I'm gassed after that. And ripped a lot of clubs, excuse me, A lot of clubs, obviously, some clubs would be able to afford that or whatever, and other clubs simply wouldn't.

But they could do that, am I right, if kids kept a bit of a diary or a training log on paper that they could do it?

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We've done a lot of work around the session RP for part of my PhD and correlated with GPS, the external load. There's a strong, there's a strong, it's evident that there's a strong relationship between both of them. You know, so, you know, we were getting the same where our GPS was telling us a tough session, but our PE was telling us a tough session as well. Like, you know, so there's a strong correlation. So it's a simple pen and paper when I was doing a PhD, done that for me.

And even now, if you want to throw up a laptop, which we still do now, is that at the end of the session, the boys are coming off the pitch, they tend to do their stress and the cool down and everything else, come off the pitch and we have the Excel sheet up on a laptop, type it in, how was that session? And that's what, We still use it, we still use it, you know, so that can be done simply with a grassroots, you know.

Yeah, and it is just a very good indicator for the coaches and for the kids and everything. It's a good one. And the way you were talking about monitoring load there, like I actually, my kids have a basketball game in about an hour. They have another basketball game tomorrow and they'll have a training session at the weekend. That idea of kind of adding up the load of the week, I think is a very interesting one as well. Do you want to just talk through that again?

So I know it might sound a little bit mathematical and a bit complicated, but it's not really. It's pretty straightforward. Yeah, no, it isn't. Like, you know, you could easily do that. Yeah, well, like again, as it says, we've got the platform to do it, but it can be easily done through an Excel sheet and they just on the calendar where is that you can put it up there, right? I've got a game tonight, I'm off tomorrow, whatever else.

But by simply asking the question of how hard did you feel that, that will give you a nicely graphed for you, even if you were in an Excel sheet, and it'll show you the load rate across the week. So then what you're looking tackling in an ideal week is that it's ungulate and it's up and down and it's giving time for recovery and it's coming back.

But the last thing you want to see is it stagnates straight across and level and all high high you know so and then the other thing that grassroots can use that for and clubs can use that is watch for spikes and load then as well, so that when they're when they're having nice weeks like this and then all of a sudden all of a sudden they're just up the load and the athletes are now starting to feel look this is really this is eight this is a nine this is we're doing

loads of this we're doing too much so you have to have another. Area that it's been found that you know them high spikes and low can result in injuries you know so thanks Scott certainly and just so we don't have people going out with their under sixes kind of next week and asking them to record their RPs I suppose you're talking here Jason like kind of when you're hitting your teens your 14s 15s 16s when kids are being pulled in multiple directions for multiple sports and they just seem

to be constantly on the go that's probably when parents and coaches need to be a little bit more observant about that load to prevent maybe hopefully the injuries that you're talking about like the big thing is up to 12 up to 12 you could simply say right how many, talk to your child talk to your athlete how many structured coaching sessions we had this week and the goal is that you don't you don't go over your age.

Right. So you don't go overage. So say, for example, oh, you're coming up to 12, you're 12, and you're coming up to a coach, oh, I've already done 10 hours this week already of structured coaching or training. Well, then you'd be going, jeez, you've done enough there. You know, you're close to it. Like, you're well going there in the right way.

You know, so things they got there, but using your age, you know, and using that could be a good method. After that, then you're talking about, yeah, start educating them early about, just educate them around the principles of planning and looking at their weekly schedules and communicating that and learning that to be open with the coach to communicate that you are doing this activity with the club the school, the county the other sports.

Just staying on that one for a second so Jason, in terms of the recovery, you've mentioned the recovery piece there a couple of times and the importance of getting adequate recovery. And if we're talking about spikes in load where they're after having a school game and now they're after going to a club basketball session that evening and it's gone way up. Now we need some recovery off the back of that to help kind of manage the kid.

Just talk about maybe the importance of recovery for those age groups, for all age groups, I suppose, really.

Yeah, I think, well, the big things are that you've been looking at doing is trying to see that, making sure that, the young person isn't say for example it is games or something they're not playing two full games within 60 hours that'd be a that'd be a given rule another one is completing two high intensity sessions like for example playing, having a high intensity basketball session and then going to play a game of football in one day,

you want to avoid that you want to look at a day and say for example a daddy age group they don't go out and play a game on a Tuesday and play for their, club and then go out and play on a Wednesday them play another game for school. Do you know what I mean? So things like that, like you want to give them time to recover now.

Every person in every age group is different but we have to remember that these these young people haven't fully matured yet or still like their bones their muscles are all still are still growing so you want to look at the the loads that these these young people are going through and and look at it as a point that you know if you take growing adults you know a lot of them aren't fully recovered from a game of football for 72 hours do you know what i mean so So,

take it and think about it that way as well. Yeah. Yeah. And in terms of recovery, because people hear about recovery, like, what should we be encouraging? Let's say you're 17, 16, 17-year-olds, or you're, you know, inter-county people. I know it's probably different with inter-county because they have the facilities and they have, you know, ice bats or I meet fellas coming out of the water and feed it, like yourself one day when you nearly got swept out to sea.

But like, what should recovery look like on an off day for some of those people? Yeah, it depends on time of the year and the period ages without going into really all that. And the big ones, the big one for all of us is the key ones about just getting properly hydrated, getting your nutrition and board, getting proper rest and good sleep.

And then after that the following day is like you know we try and encourage our players as much as we can is to totally switch off mentally and physically like just switch off if it's a day off I'd like it to be a day off.

And if we start looking at then there'll be days that they might have off but to be an active recovery, alright so they might be given like a routine to do but I usually I like to give players their self autonomy around responsibility about looking after their bodies like you know the big question i keep asking them it's i ask them how they feel most days but they know their bodies better than i do you know so i give them the responsibility

of looking at it and i give them a menu to pick there's things that are non-negotiable in the first 30 minutes to 60 minutes after game or the first part of 24 hours but within 48 hours they have to do pick one or two things out of the menu type of thing so, And again, when you prescribe ace boss, some players like him, some players don't. And again, at the end of the day, it's how physically and mentally these players feel and what works best for them.

So giving them the autonomy to look after, I think is key too. Yeah, like the food, hydration, the sleep pieces is like if everybody started with that kind of a baseline, no matter what age you are that that day after the high intensity activity food, hydration and sleep are the three pillars of what you're looking for outside of anything else.

I know there's research been done with the boys in Manchester with United and what they bring into sleep and stuff like that over the years but also there's research that has been unpublished there from there a few that have kind of looked at all their type of things but the big thing is sleep. Sleep is incredible. Yeah. Sleep. Like, you know, everything they've got that's coming out of everything they monitor.

And if you think of how much stuff they actually monitor, it's sleep, you know, the quality and sleep duration. Like the ice baths and the, you know, recovery boots or, you know, the things that inflate up. I can't remember the name of them. But like all of those things are great kind of, you know, one percenters, two percenters.

But the sleep the sleep is just like the science behind the sleep now at the moment is just overwhelming like for me the norm attacks all these type of stuff it's basically there is a bit of, research a bit of back around it you know when we use them but the big thing for me that comes out of the norm attacks is that.

It's a time for the per for the player to switch off and he's got the boots on he's mentally switched off he's either watching tv or watching something or he could be just chilling out or phone but he's relaxed and some of the research is you know is around it is like it actually helps him to sleep the night before a big game yeah so it comes back to sleep again it's about bringing just bringing everything down and calm in the state and and they really they do it works to just to relax them

really yeah and tell me do you know what because i'm going through this phase of my life now jason where i am going out to feed it and i'm getting into the water regularly and i'm i'm i'm spending a few minutes inside there but i i'm looking at different research around the ice baths and the and that that cold stuff now a bit like that it probably i actually probably feel like i sleep better after than mentally as much as anything

else it's a kind of a I don't know, maybe it's a placebo or something, but the actual, and I'm off topic now, but the science around the ice baths, is there still a little bit of conflict around how much benefit you're getting out of it? I personally, I like them as well. Yeah. I personally like them. But there is, there's a bit of science around them at the minute and there's a bit of controversy around them. But again, it's around the time of year you use them and what time of the period

of the season you're in. So if you're pre-season You're in season And everything else But The big thing We Like you know Our boys still use them Is that We're in season Regardless of.

Like if you're training you know a training adaptation there's a bit of science around it not to use that you know if you're looking at a muscle growth or hypersrophy or whatever it is that you know you don't go after it at a certain time yes but if you're looking after if you're in a period of right we're in the business part of the season and you know when you're looking to get straight into it and get recovered and everything else well there is an element around that will help you

you know and the way I look at it is it comes back to the player, if the player tells me that it works for him, I'm going to go with it regardless.

But what else you know so and me personally I've used them and I used them when I was playing and I still jump into the old one I think people have that appreciation that if you're looking for robust kind of athletes and you have steps in place for them the gym is a part of it like it just it has to be and and again it's not about like you're not talking about loading up or under eights and under 10s and that they're trying to it's it's about

developing good good movement and good mobility and good technique and eventually when they get to a stage where where now they should be adding a little bit of load then that that that is there and and the technique is strong with it like it's it's just that's the way it's gone really isn't it oh it is surely it is surely and even not that for me it's it's all about it's one it's it's already been shown it's going to reduce injury rates by 50% so it's a no-brainer,

also it keeps athletes engaged, you find at that age and the younger athletes is that they're expunges and even girls are more so that they really do buy into it, but it's not just that it's about self-esteem and self-confidence and then having the confidence then to go out on the feeling knowing that they've been doing this better work as well. Where did you pull that from there it What exactly reduces injuries by 50%?

A athletic development strength in this one okay that's a big number that's massive huge yeah yeah, uh last one i wanted to i wanted to just kind of run by you jay and i'll let you i'll let you get out of here is is just and i mentioned it again because i've i've i've got a lot of people in a lot of different sports and most kids most kids are playing multiple sports now where where are we now jason with kind of just in terms of their athletic profile where are we in terms of early,

specialisation in, let's say, okay, we're just going to concentrate on Gaelic football or soccer or hurling or whatever, versus, okay, I'm going to play in Gaelic football, I'm going to play in soccer, I'm going to play in basketball.

Where are we in terms of a kid's athletic development by the time they get into their teens from those two different kind of areas? Yeah. Wow. This is a big one. This is a big one. Very good. Good question. It's a big one. To be honest, this is one area that, geez, it's something I've got a serious blood bar at the minute with the whole well within Gaelic football anyway at the minute it's around the age grade of under 17s.

For me even if late I've actually I've spoke to the boys I've spoke to Martin, I've spoke to the boys in Crook Park about it, I just feel that these athletes aren't physically and mentally prepared and ready for it, and that's not just me looking at it from a strength and nutrition point of view. I'm looking at it from an education point of view to a welfare point of view. I'm looking at it from a psychological point of view. I'm looking at a growth

and maturation point of view. I'm looking at it from a sports science point of view. I'm looking at it from a coaching point of view. I do believe that these athletes aren't ready for it. Yeah, it's like, if you look at it at the minute, like some of these athletes haven't even finished their under 16 developments out yet.

And in some of the cases, that have been finished they're under 15 development dirt because some are maybe even better you know and then it's not till the year later like next year that they're actually going to be under 17 but in saying that once you once you're labelled with being a on an elite you'd be labelled as being an elite athlete at that level and once you carry the label of being a county manor you know we still think in our heads a county manor and you still think of you know,

you tend to think that they're young adults they're young like they're 18.

You know you tend to forget that some of these lads are still only 15 and 16 you know and for me if you look at specialisation in sport and what happens when you do specialise in sport and they're born out and everything else that goes with it it's based around three simple, it's in the research the three simple principles that if you, one, you choose one sport alright, second one is that if you do that One sport more than eight points of the year,

and you then drop other sports, then that's been defined as being early specialization in sport. Okay. So that's where we are. Regardless of the person's age? Regardless of the person's, well, we're talking about 16, 7, up till before they're about under 18. Okay. Okay. So if you're taking that consideration that, you know, you look at how many 16-year-olds at the minute in the country are now looking at being a county manor. Some of them are 15, some of them are 15 and 16.

You're telling them, right, okay, you're now a county manor. You're going to play this sport. Now they're at the minute still playing college football. They're still playing school football. And if they're at that level playing at 117 and they're at that level being a county manor, they're going to be good enough to play 117 college school and 118 school.

That's two school teams yeah then they're Cody Maynard and then this is not to mention the clubs are going to be kicking in in February and March and April, and then they've got four so they've got four teams and then that's not the clue that these players could be effectively developed but, to a point that they've got reached a peak height velocity alright but they're also dual players yeah and then we haven't even we haven't taken into consideration

of other sports like like, yeah, basketball, soccer, rugby. And then we stop and look at it and go, and a part of, you know, that development pathway we talk about, and one of the key principles of the GA and the GA's handbook is that encouraging to play other activities. We're going to get the time to play other activities. That's another book on the shelf there somewhere. And then on top of it, there's a lot of principle of play called, it's like, you know, free play.

Like when are these guys going to get free play? Now, when we talk about free play, free play is going out to the school yard and playing basketball after lunch or during lunch or after school going and playing a bit of basketball. These boys, where are they going to get the chance, you know, to do that, you know? And this is where I just feel that they're physically and not mentally. And I'm not saying it's the fault of the minor managers or the school teachers.

I'm not, I'm actually saying that this has come from the top where... Structure. Structure. It has come from the structure of it and look at it. But even at that, I'm saying it's like TUA students. We didn't have TUA when we were growing up at home. but TUA is a year that these students are going to be, you know, going through that time.

But the reason why we do TUA is to help them mature and develop as people and young people and get them to think, but then also we fast track them into an adult, to our high performance area at that same age, which they haven't even actually got through that.

So we're kind of fast tracking them to adulthood without actually getting them to actually go through that but V is what we're talking about, but also the psychological and the research around, you know, young people don't find themselves till later on in their late teens, till they're 18, 19, you know what I mean?

So there's also other things around the psychology around they're trying to fit in, not just their football or their hurling at this age and being that, but they're trying to find out who they are and their friends and their social end of things. But where are they going to get the time for that?

They didn't find the times that alright, I'm in this here but alright, I'm doing it and then the big thing is now it's still a dirty say but I'd like to see some type of work around, where these players are when they go from 17, 18, 19 and even at that, some of the better 17 year olds are going to be fast-tracked in their under-20s are going to be now going straight into under-20 and then they're going to go geez right, an under-20 now and then their cycle just keeps going and then they're 18,

they're 19, they're 20 and then. That's when we look at and go, right, that young person's been in the system four or five years with constant high pressure, high performance. Intense environment. You know what I mean? That's a lot. But even now that, it's each time that young person goes to training or goes to compete in a game, they're giving 100%. It's that high and pressured situation they're in. But that's constantly going.

You know what I mean? It doesn't stop them. Yeah. Yeah, what is the solution? I mean, moving it to 18, of course, they're going to have another year's maturity and development. But it also, geez, Jason, for anybody in any of these counties, it just really highlights the need to have really good supports for all of these kids going through all the development squads and into minors and under 20s and so on. It's a big ask, isn't it?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we've, like, you know, part of this model is looking at that and looking at just not the person or the coach or the player, but looking at them off the field, away from the field and what they're doing. And we're doing some stuff, you know, work around education. And we talked about, you know, we want to make them a better person, you know, a better person, a better athlete type of thing.

But what we're looking at is that we're bringing these people in that they're helping them, support them through, you know, college, getting them ready for college. The subjects that they're choosing, is that what they're looking to do, but also getting them ready for college and then when they get to college that we're working with them to help them to navigate around, getting ready for coming out to the real world, but also they're looking at CVs and different things. But these young people.

We've had just found with them is that we've done the last, it was in August, we've done an education day, we've done an education day with parents and stuff like that, but we've also done another education day just with the players and it was around, the theme was resilience, but it wasn't just people think straight away it's all resilience, it's a mental thing, it's all about the mental or the mental psychology of,

but the theme around resilience is what these young people is, it's being resilient.

Things don't go your way you know what i mean that you've got the tools to help you to bounce back but if things don't happen for you know outside of this outside of football or with football or with hurling or with any sport everything kind of you know kind of domino effect so for example if you get injured you have a setback on the pitch but a lot of people then is their nutrition goes, goes, goes away to the way I said, then the college work is affected.

Yeah. Relationship is affected. So the day was around building resilience, but within what dealing with setbacks, but we had nutrition resilience with a careers resilience around, right. If something was right, we needed, we need to pencil this and how do we deal with this? You know, and then looking at, we used a mentorship.

Group going that we've got players present and past that are in this mentorship group that they come in and give their experiences so when we were given the theory about how to deal with things we're getting real life situations from players you know on that like you know at that with that age group it was uh it was with the 16s actually so the next time they'd come together was going to be they're going to be county mainers yeah so that group there's going to

be possibly 20 or 30 of them aren't going to make it.

So how are they going to deal with that setback you know with that you know and so we kind of looked at giving them the tools to look at and we actually brought in Paul Murphy, and Paul Murphy never played County Mainers was selected for County Mainers was selected for under-20s but was a late mature, player and is now one of the key players within the carry senior footballers you know and he spoke about his time not being selected and wasn't he was selecting Forsyth's Kiari team,

and you know what I felt and so he was sharing with the players and sharing that you know just because this doesn't happen now and knowing that there's always another way of looking at things and how to build that resilience at them so it was good.

In a random way I think I don't know if I answered you or yeah no do you know what I actually think that was some of the best stuff because I. Like I can remember talking about that stuff years ago and how powerful that is because there's so many kids like you mentioned 600 kids like there's only 15 kids are going to start for the Kerry Minors when they're 17 there's only going to 15 start with the 20s and 15 start with the 20s so that's a lot of kids that won't be representing Kerry

or Cork or Dublin or any county that go through all those development squads in all those different counties but like they're taking away something tangible fair enough they have the opportunity to be involved in a high performance environment and challenge themselves and learn and improve but then they're also taking away that educational piece I remember chatting to Dave and Dave was telling me Dave is obviously an accountant

with his own firm in Tralee and Dave going in and talking to the kids about the academic challenges that he faced getting to his career that he wanted to get to while balancing playing inter-county football with Kerry and I think those things are really, really powerful for kids to take away from those squad structures, you know?

Exactly, and funny, I mean, you mentioned David is actually another player that was part of that mentorship group was actually in that day, you know, so he was actually, you know, talking around that. But, yeah, it's like, you know, when we spoke to the parents, you know, we want to educate the parents around it. Like, you know, like we look at development squads, it's about development squads to me, people see this as being as a pathway for Cary GA or Cary County teams.

Development squads to me is about development.

Taking the key leaders and players within clubs and, and, and building on that, but making coming out of that development process with key skills of, be it strength, conditioning, nutrition, mindset, careers, and taking it back to the club, taking it back to the grassroots and, all right, they'll go back as leaders and, and, and do that, but then bring other people with them within the club and bring them up and bring the standards of them up as well.

Like, you know, So for me, it's important that they will also play a role in that knowing that just because you're not selected here, that it doesn't mean you're not going to be selected further in the process and keep sticking to the path. Like the big thing around, if you look at the research out there about Olympic champions or gold medal winners or, you know.

In any sport that they all had some type of what they call trauma in their lives, you know, and they always came back to it, you know, and they always related back to it. You know, that the path to success isn't a linear path and I expect there's going to be bumps in the path, but it's about how you navigate your way around them bumps and traumas and get back onto the path that you, that's where the real learning is.

And it's not about how many traumas or setbacks you're going to get that'll make you better, but it's about what you learn in them setbacks and how you're going to, how you navigate around them that'll make you a hardened and second and better.

But remember that, way like you know it's you know initiated with me with part of my coaching philosophy is that, i was from a real part norma but when we were growing up with a real club called all these iron parties that we're dealing with the big numbers you know we didn't have numbers we didn't have you know i was i wasn't much bigger i didn't agree much grow much but when i was there i was like maybe i was 14 but i was playing

under 18s you know yeah so that's the type of thing was is Like, you know, but what I'm trying to say is that we didn't have numbers.

We weren't the teams that were going out and winning county jumpships every year. When we're playing the school team or the town teams, we're taking some beatings. You're like, you know, when you look back and you're going, why was I doing it? And the reason why you're doing it, because you love the game.

You love the sports and that's, it's the love of what you do is going to get you back onto that path and get you back into the, you know, so if you didn't make the the minors this year is like being resilient enough to say right what can i do to be better or what can i look at to be better or ask questions of how do i get back onto the path but knowing that it's it's never over all right so it's and it's the love of way you do it it's going to get you back onto that path

yeah brilliant jason i think that's a great way to wrap up man yeah i i i love that i think that was uh that was a brilliant piece of it i thanks a million for your time and I know I noticed you were reticent and I really appreciate you actually taking the time and chatting I think it was really really good I think there's stuff there that coaches and everybody can take a huge amount from to be honest so I want to thank you and secondly can I can I just to wrap up can I can I just remind

people again that I'm doing this as as much as a fundraiser for for Louise Quill and the Tiernanog orphanage in Tanzania a tree woman a carry woman who has done incredible work over there just starting an orphanage after she was over there on a college placement and couldn't deal with what she had seen and has made an incredible difference in the community and in the lives of people over there and children in particular.

So if you, again, if you did find value in the content of that conversation with Jason or in any of the other ones that we've done, I'd be delighted if you could find a link to the fundraising page and throw in a couple of euros if you could at all. So Jason, thanks again, man. really really appreciate your time cheers thanks a lot great cheers. Music.