Days before what might prove the defining game in their season, and Turlough O’Brien is as open as a book. Whatever chance Carlow have of making a first Leinster football final since 1944 won’t be helped by not talking about it.
“I honestly think a lot of counties are making a huge mistake with the way they deal with the media, and the public, and their supporters,” he says. “And I think we’re doing a huge disservice to the game. We’re complaining about press coverage, and then we don’t give access. So, we can’t have it both ways.
“There are no secrets any more anyway, with the social media, and all that. Before a game is finished, your opposition probably has the video of the game anyway. There’s nothing to hide, really.”
O’Brien’s glasnost policy doesn’t end there: just like media bans, the Carlow manager sees nothing to be gained from drinking bans.
“We haven’t had an issue with that, to be quite honest. I found if you treat players like adults they behave like adults. For what they’re putting into it, they’re not going to go mad, like. They can’t afford to.
“John Wooden, the basketball coach, he always said his best friend was the bench. That’s really the answer to all those problems. You can have all the rules and regulations and team charters, whatever you want. But at the end of the day the manager has the power to say ‘sorry, you’re not starting today’, and that’s the ultimate punishment.”
Negative talk
What O’Brien doesn’t like is some of the negative talk around Gaelic football, especially when it comes to the weaker counties: “I think ex-players in particular, pundits, are talking down the game the whole time. Talking up Dublin, talking down their own counties . . . I can’t say names but there’s guys writing in newspapers every weekend and they’re writing the same story every weekend, and it’s a mantra: ‘Football is a disaster.’ It really annoys me.”
O’Brien is now in his third season with Carlow, and the graph is steadily rising: Carlow played five championship games last summer, their most ever; this spring they were promoted from division four, the first time ever; last Sunday week they beat Kildare for the first time since 1953.
Sunday’s Leinster semi-final against Laois will be the latest litmus test. Carlow haven’t beaten Laois in the championship in 30 years, and lost against them in the division four final in Croke Park in April. For O’Brien, who invited the media to a meet-and-greet with players and management ahead of Sunday’s game, it’s all part of the progress.
“I think the impression of Carlow has changed in the last 12 months, really, especially after the championship last year. We were quietly confident ourselves that Kildare were a side we could take. I think Carlow are showing now that a team that is well organised, structured and prepared can compete. And that’s the way it’s worked out. I thought that we were much more tactically aware than Kildare. Our game plan, we fulfilled it to the letter of the law.
‘Thick and thin’
“If you look at the team that started, or the panel, there’s 10 or 12 lads there who are there 10 years. Through thick and thin they stuck with it. We don’t need to win Leinster championships to get a senior team together.
“We were fortunate that we got all the players in the county that we wanted in – or 95 per cent of them at least: there’s always one or two that maybe have a reason they can’t commit. We got a great buy-in from the players and from the clubs, and that was really the secret to it, that we got everybody on board.
“Look, we made a bit of progress over the first couple of years, and then Stevie [Poacher] came on board [as coach] and he added a whole new dimension to it, to be quite honest with you, and players really responded to him. And we are where we are now.”
The 2-14 they hit against Kildare made a little history in another sense: the first time in living memory a Carlow football team didn’t hit a single wide. O’Brien isn’t claiming that as part of his masterplan, but there’s no denying he’s got Carlow reaching for their full potential.
‘Local’
“When we came in, we were local, and I think people knew that we were 100 per cent Carlow, really – that was really it. We’ve had a lot of outside managers and I think sometimes you appoint a big-name manager and you leave him there, ‘job done’, and he doesn’t get the support that he needs. They’re the sort of issues that cripple counties at times.
“I think the players too have to have belief that you can achieve something with your county – not necessarily that you might win a Leinster championship or an All-Ireland, but that you can go out there on a given day, and expect to give your best. Expectations are great. I think they’re great because the expectation up to now as that we’d lose, and we always fulfilled it to the letter of the law. We would lose.
“We’re not making any predictions about results because it’s a fool’s game, really. But no one will beat Carlow easily this year, I’ll guarantee you that.”
