The truth has been staring us in the face the whole time.
How often do we hear about team’s working on new moves for big games, focusing on giving their all or putting in 110%?
100% or 110%. One Dublin star believes the number need not be that high.
70% can often get you over the line in a final. The secret to being champions, it seems, is not worrying about being perfect. Not sweating the small stuff.
Such was the opinion of former Dublin back Barry Cahill, who won the All-Ireland with his county in 2011.
Sparked by Colm Parkinson’s GAA Hour take on a Pádraic Joyce story – training to shoot off his right ahead of Galway’s 2001 All-Ireland win – Cahill gave a fascinating insight to a trophy-winning mentality. He said:
“It is a big area that players and teams make, when they win a semi-final. All of a sudden you are into a final and you feel you have to give a 10/10 performance to win. You actually don’t.
“If you do stick to your core aspects, what works well for you, and try to maximise them, you give yourself the best chance possible.
“If you look at the Mayo side over the last number of years, they have beaten a lot of brilliant teams at quarter- and semi-final stages – maybe by giving 9/10 performances. Then they get to an All-Ireland final a deliver a 5/10 when, actually, a 7/10 might have won the final for them.
“There’s a phrase there that you’ve got to rise to the occasion but I don’t think you can rise. You’ve just got to fall back to what you are good at and make sure you do all the basics extremely well, cut out the errors and fine-tune certain aspects.”
Mayo fans may be heartened, then, to hear Stephen Rochford talking about what his team need to cause the current Dublin side problems in this Sunday’s final. Rochford told Parkinson:
“I’ve no doubt that we’ll hit a purple patch [on Sunday] but if we can get to that level of consistency and attention to the getting the basics right, I think we’ll be really competitive all along the 70 minutes.”
If Mayo can do what they do best, and not break themselves trying to be better, they have a hell of a chance.
Stephen Rochford and Barry Cahill chat with Colm Parkinson on The GAA Hour. Subscribe here on iTunes.
