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Submitted by [email protected] on Thu, 03/07/2014 - 12:16

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In the latest of our interview series on player welfare in the GAA, we speak to former Armagh footballer Enda McNulty about the area of mental and psychological preparation.

 

By Arthur Sullivan

In Dermot Earley's most recent column for GAA.ie, he explained how important embracing and developing the mental side of his game was in terms of achieving his potential as a footballer.

"The psychological side of sport is increasing as part of the overall package of management and preparing teams for the season ahead - in particular, for the big championship games,”wrote the former Kildare midfielder.

He made specific reference in his column to the work of former Armagh footballer Enda McNulty, who through his company Motiv8, has been working in the area of mental and psychological preparation for almost 10 years now.

Not that that's the only thing he does. Ask most people familiar with the GAA what McNulty does, and they will probably say "something in sports psychology."

McNulty himself is well aware of this specific association. "Not enough people know that we don't just do sports psychology. Seven years ago, we stopped doing sports psychology only and we started building this vision for the company which is much more holistic and comprehensive," he says.

So what exactly is it that Enda McNulty and his company do?

"If we were relying on sports psychology to be in business, we would be out of business. Even the way we market our company now, we're definitely not a sports psychology company, we're a company that operates in performance excellence," he explains.

"So in that we work with clients in business, professional sport, amateur sport, and big global corporates around five core elements under the performance excellence banner."

Although he emphasises that the key to the success of his business, in terms of the sporting side at least, is the fact that it focuses on the various strands in preparation - such as strength and conditioning, tactical innovation, diet and lifestyle - it is obvious from the core elements he highlights that the mental and psychological side remains central to what he does.

There are probably a few reasons why McNulty is so readily associated with the psychological aspects of sport, and one of them is surely the nature of the great Armagh team that he played on. McNulty played with Armagh from 1996-2010, and the undoubted zenith of his career came in 2002 when Armagh won their first and to date their only All-Ireland senior football title.

That Armagh team has already gone down in legend. There is a sense that they scaled a mountain higher than most teams have to scale. They came from practically nowhere, having been in the doldrums for years before an upsurge in their fortunes eventually ended with them at the very summit of the game.

Adding to the sense that this was a special team are the types of characters that were involved in it. Three of the six defenders McNulty played with on the All-Ireland winning XV are now respected inter-county managers, lauded in particular for the quality of their mental approach to the sport. There’s Enda’s brother Justin, who’s the manager of Laois. Captain Kieran McGeeney is now the manager of Kildare while wing-back Aidan O’Rourke is Louth manager.

Enda himself is of course prominent in the field of sports science and preparation, while other members of the team such as Oisín McConville and Steven McDonnell are prominent media figures now, respected for their views and noted for their strength of character. But as McNulty is very eager to point out, that entire team was made of fiercely strong characters, and not just the ones who have come to prominence now.

“To say that the Armagh boys had a strong mental toughness I would say is an understatement. Incredible mental toughness in those guys and that's across the board. Even the guys who never got credit for that,” he says firmly.

“People like Cathal O'Rourke, John Toal, Andy McCann. We all know that Kieran McGeeney had incredible mental toughness, but so too did Andy McCann. So too did John and Tony McEntee. So too did people like Paddy McKeever on the big day.

“But a lot of those guys didn't get the credit they deserved for their mental toughness. My brother Justin went through a lot of adversity in terms of a heart defect that he had and yet he played through that and wanted to play on for another few years but wasn't let.

“Paul McGrane is another guy who deserves massive credit there. One of the most mentally tough guys I ever played with, incredible gentleman off the pitch but an incredible workhorse with huge skill on the pitch. So was it coincidental that a lot of the boys went on to do something afterwards in sport? No coincidence whatsoever.”

McNulty, a native of Mullaghbawn in south Armagh, paints a fascinating picture of the cultural environment which some of those Armagh players emerged from, and the subsequent training environment they became immersed in when they started playing for Armagh, where their mental strength and toughness was further forged.

“I would say that there's two aspects to the development of mental toughness,” he says. “Nature and nurture. Diarmuid Marsden, by nature, is a very strong, tough, resolute guy. His upbringing in Lurgan in Armagh would have been a good, strong, tough upbringing.

“Barry O'Hagan - another guy who never got near enough credit - again, a good, strong, tough, battle-hardened upbringing. But, the nurture side of things. The training was very tough. The experiences we gained along the way were tough.

“A number of games we lost were formative in forging character. We suffered a lot of adversity. We started off in 1996 as about number 20 in the country. We went from being number 20 to being number one. You learn an awful lot on the way. Part of that mental toughness was due to the physical toughness training we did and due to the mental toughness training we got from people like Hugh Campbell and Des Jennings.

“Also, it was from the characters that we had on the training pitch every day. Literally it was like going to war on a training pitch. The famed Kilkenny sessions, they talk about how tough they were. I can't imagine that those Kilkenny sessions were any tougher than the Armagh sessions. I'll give you one prime example. I remember one night I got a head butt, accidentally, from Paul McGrane and it split my cheek open. I've still got the scar as you can see across my cheek.

“It wasn't a case of "Enda, are you ok?" after it. It was "Go and get the stitches on Enda, and get back training." That happened on a regular basis. Guys would get split open, cut open and you're expected to get back to training immediately and to continue on.

“I can also remember that there literally used to be regular free-for-alls. Fights. Myself and Kieran McGeeney, or Kieran McGeeney and Cathal O'Rourke. Or Justin McNulty and John Toal. Diarmuid Marsden versus Francie Bellew. There would be regular fistfights. But guys would shake hands and move on.

“I remember regularly myself and Steven McDonnell would fall out and go toe to toe. But then you would get back in the drill and shake hands, smile and move on. But that was all formative in the toughness development of the team.”

That’s the kind of place that Enda McNulty is coming from, and the nature of his sporting career has undoubtedly played a big part in the type of work he does today. However, that work has now diversified far beyond the football fields of south Armagh.

In recent weeks, a team from Motiv8 spent time in Miami working with members of the Digicel Caribbean team, Digicel being the large mobile phone network provider owned by Irish businessman Denis O'Brien. That same week, Motiv8 were working with employees of financial services company Morgan Stanley in New York, while this week the company is in Arizona working with another global telecommunications company.

As well as that, McNulty and Motiv8 are well known for their work with Leinster Rugby and more recently, the Irish rugby team. They also work with a number of professional golfers, track and field athletes, and have worked with a number of inter-county GAA teams in the past such as the Tipperary and Galway hurlers.

What McNulty emphasises time and time again is that in working with that varied portfolio of clients, it’s not enough to simply focus on the idea of mental toughness, and a more wide-ranging approach is something he says can be applied to Gaelic footballers, hurlers and camogie players across the board.

“You need to be strong and mentally tough and fast and have the right game-plan and have the best skill execution in order to be able to thrive at the highest level in Gaelic Games. So the mental toughness preparation we bring to the table is important, but it's not the only important thing and for all the teams and athletes we work with, we try to put together a total preparation platform for them.

“So we work with a lot of world-class golfers and rugby players, and it's putting that whole structure in place for them and allowing them to perform to their potential on a regular basis. The key is to tie all the strands together, to create a platform for people, so they can go and excel. That's the key, to tie all the elements together. That's why Team GB in the last Olympics excelled. Because all of those aspects were tied so tightly together.

“It's a total preparation system you need to put in place on an everyday basis, even Christmas Day.”

Although in terms of sportspeople, Motiv8 works predominantly with elite level athletes, or inter-county level players as would be the case in GAA, McNulty says being an elite level performer is not the key to benefitting from proper mental and psychological preparation.

One of the key principles which Jim McGuinness harnessed to such powerful effect in Donegal in 2011 and 2012 was the idea of putting a proper structure in place for players so, if they had the desire to fully achieve their potential, they then would have the platform from which to do so. McNulty says this desire of people to be the best they can be is the key to success when tackling the mental side of things in sport, and in life in general.

“If they're not hugely committed to being the best they can be, we're not interested in working with them and we had to be very pragmatic in that,” he says. “Because why would we waste our time and our efforts and our passion and our energy working with people who aren't committed to that excellence?”

With that in mind, what should be the approach for a young GAA player today looking to achieve their maximum potential? While the obvious old tenet of ‘practice, practice, practice’ is all well and good, is it enough to take a young footballer, hurler or camogie player to the top?

McNulty outlines the ideal scenario that needs to be in place in order for a talented young player to become an All Star or All-Ireland winner in the future.

“When kids are 14-16, that window is critical for somebody moving onto the next level and moving towards minor level at inter-county standard,” he says.

“I would have a very similar formula for young kids in terms of going after and chasing down their dreams and thus achieving their potential. Number one, they need to focus in on their skills primarily. So the Peter Canavan or Henry Shefflin philosophy on skill development - that's going to take two or three hours a day, every day of the week for 10 years until they are 24 if they want to become a Peter Canavan, a Henry Shefflin or a Cora Staunton.

“So the first thing is a really strong focus on their skills every day. Secondly is a very strong focus on their mental skills. Developing their confidence, their composure, their concentration and the control of their emotions. So a very strong mental focus that they develop on a daily basis, again by what they do when they practice against the wall or when they practice in training.

“The third thing they will need to develop is their physical fitness. To get somebody who is an expert in developing a very simple, practical fitness programme. The next thing they will need to have is a very good lifestyle. That means their nutrition, hydration and rest and recovery will be very important. They're going to need to play a lot of challenging games - not necessarily games that they are trying to win in, but games that they are trying to improve and develop.

“And finally, they need to have a very strong environment. Their Mum or their Dad is going to be formative. Their teacher, their coach, the people in the club are going to be very formative. Four or five fundamental things in a formula there will lead to them achieving their potential, all underpinned by their attitude.

“The attitude they have to have is, to use a phrase that Jonathan Sexton (Irish rugby international) uses: ‘Everyday they're getting busy getting better’.”

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Enda McNulty was speaking in an exclusive interview with GAA.ie. GAA.ie will continue to feature interviews with a wide range of people involved in safeguarding and ensuring the welfare of GAA players.