O’Keeffe stresses important of underage development

ST JOSEPH’S Doora-Barefield and former All-Ireland-winning Kerry goalkeeper Declan O’Keeffe has told The Clare Champion that revamping Clare football’s underage player development structures should take precedence over everything else, as far as football in the county is concerned. 
He says promising young players should be micro-managed between the ages of 15 and 20 in order to properly prepare them for the challenges of playing adult football at county level.
This would involve a former county player or a strength and conditioning expert keeping in regular touch with a small group of promising footballers and ensuring they are undergoing the strength and conditioning work, as well as living the lifestyle necessary to play inter-county football.
“We need to get in at U-14 and U-15 level and work on developing a winning attitude,” he said, before elaborating on how the micro-management system would work.
“Young players must be put on the right programme. A lot of these programmes are dynamic stretching programmes, getting their body ready for when they get a bit older. 
“It’s not about putting 15-year-olds under a bench press and getting them to bench press what a 24-year-old is doing. It’s going to cost a bit of money but not a huge amount. I don’t see money as being the big thing,” he said.
“It must be carried on year after year. You’re in your prime when you reach 20 years of age. You’re a senior player then. It doesn’t take that long,” the two-time All-Ireland winner added.
O’Keeffe recognises that the current senior county managerial vacancy must be filled by a quality management team but he doesn’t envisage getting heavily involved in Clare football for a few years yet. He has three boys under the age of four.
“If things were right I’d like to get involved peripherally at underage but because of my family situation, it’s not practical at the moment,” he explained.
“The overall picture for me is that it goes back to underage and maybe general structures. I would say that they’d have to improve first.
“Obviously, the immediate thing for the senior team is to get a good management in place and to get out of Division 4. It’s very easy for me to compare it with Kerry but it’s not comparing like with like because we don’t have the same level of hurling in Kerry.
“It is a very difficult situation but I feel that more work has to be done in recognising that it is difficult and that hurling is being pushed by the majority,” O’Keeffe said.
He feels that 16 senior football clubs are too many and that Clare should try to introduce divisional teams in order to give junior and intermediate players a platform to play senior championship football. He cites his own experience with East Kerry as an example.
“We were hammered out the gate in most games in the early 1990s. Next thing, players like Seamus Moynihan, Donal Daly, John Crowley and myself started to emerge. We had good club players as well. The thing about divisional teams is you can get four or five for a county team,” he maintained.
O’Keeffe won three senior championship medals with East Kerry in the late-1990s.
“Everyone gets to play senior who is good enough to play it. I played my first county championship in Kerry in 1995 when I was a junior club player. We lost two or three semi-finals and we lost a final but we went on to win three. We had players from intermediate, junior and novice. Donal Daly was playing novice.
“The two men we had in the middle of the field were from a novice club but they were able to go out and dominate the likes of Darragh O’Sé and other players at senior club level,” he recalled.
As for how to develop Clare football, O’Keeffe is certain that the answer lies at underage level. Then take it from there.
“Performing and winning is a habit. For it to be attainable in Clare, it has to start at a younger age. It’s attainable to beat Kerry at underage and to win a Munster minor, as we’ve seen with Tipperary. It’s very hard to win a Munster senior but if you get fellas winning underage and have a proper feeder system, I’m not saying Clare are going to win All-Irelands or anything but at least you’ll be competing and performing,” he said.
On an aside, like many club ­players in this county, O’Keeffe is at a loss as to why more ­championship football and hurling isn’t played during the summer months.
“The whole championship being held up in both codes as much as they are is crazy. I know county teams have to prepare but surely to God a couple of rounds could be played in May or June,” he suggested.