A junior coach simply asks: What can we learn from soccer?

Picking the brain of the soccer world was once considered anathema in every GAA circle. But taking the best from the rest is now an integral part of modern coaching culture.

We asked innovative young coach Terry McDonald, who guided Naas to an Intermediate Championship in 2004, what he learned from the once forbidden code. By borrowing from the beautiful game, he led a youthful and raw Naas team to success.

"You don't have to look too hard to see where other sports are gaining an edge," said McDonald. "And sometimes coaches are in the habit of not looking beyond the most obvious things. Take something as simple as the quick free in soccer. You didn't see that tactic used as much in GAA at the time, but that can dictate the tempo of a game and play to your strengths if you're a team with good movement.

"A lot of the time it's players who slow the game down at stoppages and that was a big one for me. I certainly adopted the tactic of always looking for the quick free and I think a lot of teams are of that mindset now: it's about maintaining momentum."

Like most things, sometimes doing the simple things is the best path to results, but there's nothing simple about sports science and this is where McDonald believes soccer will always gain an edge.

"Sports science and preparation are now bywords for success," he said. "And this is where soccer has the edge because they have the money to invest. The GAA can follow soccer's lead and in many ways has to, because they don't have the resources to explore the depths of the subject. This is an area where the GAA can learn a huge amount, not in a playing sense but in a preparation sense."

The question of whether soccer develops better movement though draws an interesting response. "I think GAA players have as good, if not better movement now as the soccer players. Sure look at Gooch Cooper. And even if we were to go back a bit to someone like Kevin Moran, well he went straight from Dublin into Manchester United's first team and I didn't see any problem with his movement then. Did you?"

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