Old fashioned approach has Moorefield finely tuned for historic Corofin clash this weekend

Moorefield v Corofin, Saturday February 17, O'Connor Park, Tullamore: 2pm

“We’ve never really approached things with that type of scientific method,” notes Ross Glavin on whether or not BMI’s, sprint speeds and endurance tests had to be done on the Moorefield panel following the Christmas break.

The Moorefield manager is in the incredibly rare position for a club manager in his county, where he is preparing the Kildare champions for a Senior Club All-Ireland semi-final – only Raheens in 1982 and Moorefield themselves in 2006 have made it this far before. After the incredible scenes on December 17 when Kevin Murnaghan scythed over a winning point deep into stoppage time in the Leinster final win over St Loman's, it was inevitable that the celebrations would roll on into the Christmas, and into the New Year.

The carrot of having an All-Ireland semi-final and the dream of lining out in Croke Park on St Patrick’s Day means that there was very little stick needed for Glavin to goad his players into pitching up for the usual January slog on mucky fields and frozen pitches.

“Our preparation has gone excellently to be honest,” he told the Kildare Post.

While plenty of teams around the county were delving into the scientific processes that have become commonplace in an ever-progressing club game, tracking BMI’s, sprint speeds, jump distances and what not, Moorefield have not been focusing on that aspect of preparation. For Glavin and his players it has always been about the core skills of football, and when some fitness – and mental – readiness is required, runs up the hills of the Curragh are undertaken.

It means that the team is as prepared as Glavin thinks they ever have been, and pressing the reset switch after Christmas has allowed them to peak in time for the Corofin game.

“We’ve never really approached things with that type of scientific method from the outset,” said Glavin.

“We train hard and prepare hard as a group and as a team. Our primary focus was always going to be football focus, and not physical conditioning focus. The primary focus was that we wanted to become better footballers as individuals, and as a group, become a better footballing team. Obviously we’re not going to achieve anything, and we wouldn’t have achieved what we have achieved if our physical condition isn’t primed as well. If you look back on the Leinster campaign, the way it was with a lot of consecutive matches, our physical fitness probably disimproved throughout the run whereas our match fitness was great.”

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“I think we’ve progressed from the start of January to where we are now, and we’re still on an upward curve because I think our best training sessions have come in the last 10 days.”

“Between the Leinster final and New Year’s Day we said we’d meet collectively – the players needed a little bit of mental space as much as anything else. We went there St Stephen’s morning for a little blowout. It was as much as a team-building exercise for the hour we were there before going off and enjoying ourselves again. We do that a couple of times every so often to work on the physical fitness and the mental aspect too.”

Moorefield have been boosted by the return of Irish Army member Adam Tyrrell ahead of Saturday’s game.

The former Kildare footballer was part of the side that captured the Kildare Senior Championship title last October, and played in the Leinster quarter-final win over Portlaoise, but his deployment overseas meant that he was unavailable for the wins over Rathnew and St Loman’s in the following games.

Manager Ross Glavin reckons that this is the strongest panel his has had in his short time as Moorefield manager, with some more experienced players coming back into contention.

“Funny enough, I look at the squad preparing for this game, and I would say that it’s definitely the strongest we’ve probably had throughout the whole of 2017 through suspensions and injuries and stuff like that,” he said.

“It’s even more competitive now because some of the younger players have come through in that Leinster Championship and they are knocking on the door. You’ve got Niall Galvin and Anthony Durney who didn’t play in 2017 but were a big part of the 2016 campaign, and they’re back knocking on the door and putting pressure on those who were playing in the Leinster Championship.”

On Saturday they face a Corofin side who were crowned All-Ireland champions as recently as 2015, and they have won the last five Galway championships. As has been the norm for Moorefield on their incredible journey to this point, the Kildare kingpins go into the tie as underdogs.

A Corofin attack featuring the likes of Ian Burke, Gary Sice, Michael Lundy and Michael Farragher is certainly a formidable prospect to come up against, but Moorefield have form for shutting down dangerous attacks – as seen in their wins over Portlaoise, Rathnew and St Loman’s in the Leinster Championship.

For all the battling qualities that Moorefield have shown on their way to the All-Ireland semi-final this weekend, Corofin have highlighted the composure, fitness and wherewithal that they can harness when the battle goes down to the wire. Their county title almost slipped away from them when they faced a defensive Annaghdown side in the Galway Championship semi-final, only to grind out an 0-11 to 1-7 victory, comfortably their lowest scoring tally up to this point.

In the Connacht semi-final that were pushed all the way by their old foes from Roscommon, St Brigid’s, before edging an extra-time thriller by 2-15 to 1-14. Another Connacht rival of recent years awaited in the provincial final, but Castlebar Mitchels were also outlasted in a frantic finale to extra-time as the Galway men surged towards a 2-14 to 1-13 win.

It all points at a game that is likely to go right down to the wire again this Saturday, with both teams showing enough of a stubborn streak to suggest that they won’t be shaken off early.

“As we do with all oppositions, we give them our due diligence and we conduct our own analysis as a management team and try and prepare,” says Glavin of the Corofin challenge.

“Obviously, we primarily focus on ourselves, but when you look around Ireland there’s not too many bigger or more successful club teams than Corofin. It’s your stereotypical David versus Goliath match-up because we’re big underdogs, and we have been on many occasions over the last 12 months, and they’ll fully expect to beat us, and a lot of people around Ireland will expect them to beat us. With the expectation comes pressure, and we hope to bring them into a real pressurised environment and force our game on them and prove the bookies’ wrong again.”

Having played in an All-Ireland semi-final before as a player and tasted defeat, Glavin will be all to keen to make up for that heartbreak 11 years on this Saturday.