Pocher admits training load causing problems but predicts benefits will come

New and young players adapting to the training load required for inter-county football is causing an issue for Leitrim admitted Steven Poacher but the Down native believes the long term benefits will be seen in the Tailteann Cup and the years ahead, writes John Connolly.

Reflecting on the fact that Leitrim only named 23 players in their squad for the 1-13 to 1-9 loss to Offaly, Steven simply said “We named 22 today and that wasn't some sort of statement - nobody's left the panel. Nobody's walked away or anything like that, that's  all the players that were fit.

“There's 14, 15 lads who've never played senior county football before so they're getting exposed to a training load that they've never had. They're getting exposed to a higher level of intensity in these games as well. They're running harder, they're running further and they're breaking down. 

“The reason they're breaking down is because they haven't had a proper pre-season. So once they have a proper pre-season this year, you'll see the benefits of that next year. The load, the body will adapt. It's an adaptation to training, your body adapts to higher levels of training.”

It might be causing trouble at the moment but Poacher sees benefits down the line: “When you go in and just go bang, your body breaks down. If you gradually build that and what we'll hopefully do over the next couple of years is build that  inter-county standard of training and resilience to the training into their bodies.

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“The likes of Cillian McGloin, Donal Casey, Adam Reynolds, Barry McNulty will be back on the field in the next few weeks. We'll go into this Tailteann Cup in a real positive frame of mind and the experience that these lads that are playing right now have got, it's going to make the group stronger.”

The Leitrim manager was keen to stress how impressed he has been by the work of Strength & Conditioning Coach Darragh Finn: “Darragh is absolutely outstanding, he's a brilliant S&C coach. Only for Darragh, when that gap developed in that grey area with no management last year, he had done a mammoth amount of work. Darragh deserves a lot of praise and a lot of credit because he's a fantastic guy. He's a very knowledgeable fella.”

Poacher’s aim is to develop these young U20 footballers into future Senior stars: “It's about bringing these young lads through. We had five U20s playing out there today. We had another group of lads that are in around 21, 22 playing as well.

“You have two 18-year-olds in the field. It's massive, it's absolutely massive. There's no other county in Ireland doing what we're doing at the minute and I think that we gained an awful lot of respect today.”