THE LAST POINT: Roman wonders a real inspiration

Don't know if any of you read Monday's Sports supplement in the Irish Examiner  but what caught my eye last Monday was an article by Cathal Dennehy reviewing the incredible exploits of Irish athletes at the European Track & Field Finals in Rome last week, exploits that left the entire country once again discovering a love of the sport that is probably the most elemental of all  - run, walk, throw or jump, there is nothing more basic than that.

Dennehy, who some of you may be familiar with thanks to his legendary “depths of hell” relay commentary back in 2016 (so famous that all you have to do is type in 'depths of hell relay' into Google and up it comes up) took a different tack to simply lauding what Ciara Mageean, Rhasidat Adeleke and the relay teams achieved in Rome as he outlined just what these Irish heroes have achieved in spite of the odds.

A former athlete himself, Dennehy delves down deep into the challenges facing Irish coaches and revealed how an athletics club in the Czech Republic, AK Skoda Plzen in Pilsen, boasts more full-time professional coaches than all of Irish athletics - that's  a staggering enough fact that a club with 1,100 mostly juvenile members boasts eight full-time coaches but then Cathal reveals they are backed up by 60 part-time coaches employed by the club!

That gives you an idea what Irish athletes are up against and why last week's achievements in Rome are so completely otherworldly for Irish sport and what they are really up against when they step onto the track wearing the green of Ireland.

The story is not unusual. One of Carrick AC's former  athletes, Molly Crossley, found herself furthering her education in Poland some years ago and when she went to join the University athletics team, there was a full-time athletics coach detailing the requirements to train six days a week. Another Carrick AC sprinter Oisin O'Dowd found himself in Eindhoven pursuing his education and again it was something similar - qualified coaches employed by educational  institutions to further the sporting ambitions of young people, helping them reach their goals both academically and in whatever sporting arena they aspire to.

THE LAST POINT: BORING CONSISTENCY THE KEY TO PROGRESS

The French do it slightly differently - their version of local authorities support training groups with expert coaching and facilities while in Italy, who had a record setting championships in Rome last week, see their best and brightest employed by the Police and Army, a situation replicated in countries like Belgium, Poland and even Kenya.

Ireland's individual medal winners Adeleke and Mageean are based in Texas and Manchester respectively but the Dutch and Norwegian athletes are all based at home and I'd imagine their climates are probably just as ill suited to producing top class sprinters but Femke Bol and Karsten Warholm are both the best in the world over 400m hurdles. But then Dutch and Norwegian sport is heavily subsidised by oil and gas companies as investment definitely pays off.

Leitrim's own Gerard O'Donnell, who has set up his own coaching and consultancy business imaginatively called 'Godspeed' which is described as “a coaching service dedicated to teaching speed and acceleration skills to athletes, teams and coaches across all sports” has taken the plunge by going full-time  as he seeks the extra edge that will help his athletes reach even higher levels of performance.

It is working as Gerard coached two of Ireland's relay squads in Rome, including women's relay opening leg runner Sophie Becker,  while he also oversaw Ireland's preparations at the training camp in Florida before the World Relays in May where Ireland booked their place at this Summer's Olympic Games in Paris in the 4 x 400m women's and mixed relays.

That sort of coaching expertise coming out of Leitrim is nothing new - Padraig Griffin was Ireland Head Coach at two Olympic Games and helped guide Eddie Leddy to two  Olympic Games in Munich and Montreal and his son Colin, while competing himself, guided Eslin's Laura Reynolds to London 2012 while Carrigallen's Joe Doonan guided Catherina McKiernan to international glory on road and cross-country and was Irish Athletics Head coach at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona.

It's not just athletics either - Carrick's Aidan Nangle guided Frances Cryan to Moscow in 1980 and a superlative rowing performance while Jason Clancy and the team at Sean McDermott Boxing Club in Manorhamilton are coaching his son Dean to Paris. Irish's boxing success is on the back of clever use of funding and central coaching - club coaches produce the athletes and the High Performance Unit do the rest, albeit with a bit of an advantage that boxing remains essentially the same discipline regardless of weight or sex in comparison to the variety of wildly different events under the athletics umbrella.

Swimming has adopted the same template as boxing with Trident Swimming Club's Cormac Rynn learning his trade in Carrick before honing it in Limerick with the National Centre squad so it is pretty clear that coaching and good facilities work.

THE LAST POINT: Experiencing the full Irish of emotions

Investment in coaching makes a difference - it has been a hot topic in GAA circles with the  grants given to Dublin over the years, money that is  targeted primarily at participation levels in the capital but which undoubtedly has a knock on effect  down the line to Dublin's inter-county teams.

In fairness, the Dubs have made the most of it by getting clubs to pay half the wages of their coaches but more than a few clubs, including the oft-derided Kilmacud Crokes have taken it a step further by employing extra coaches at their own expense - they know that if you want to develop a diamond further down the line, you've got to do a lot of digging and polishing long before you find that perfect gem.

Sport Ireland and the Government have definitely upped their game in providing assistance to this country's sports people, from athletics to swimming, boxing to hockey, rugby to GAA, but in the countries to which we're routinely compared in terms of population, say New Zealand and Denmark, we're way behind the eight ball when it comes to funding and if we want to compete with the best in Paris and future Olympics, things have got to change and change soon.