All-Ireland winner O'Malley: "Truth is a great liberator"

AS the GAA season hit full stride and the country marked Men’s Health Week, we caught up with Louisburgh’s Austin O’Malley who managed Dublin club Cuala to the All-Ireland senior club title this year.

He spoke about the multiple challenges that players and coaches face, regarding men’s health.

READ: Mayo GAA column: The end of the road as we know it

DAVID RISCHKE: Was winning the All-Ireland a huge thrill?
Austin O’Malley: “It was great, it was an amazing year. There was a lot packed into it and it was brilliant. It was a year that was full of challenge, but a huge amount of reward, obviously, in the end when you get across the line.
It’s brilliant and will live long in the memory, I can tell you.”

DR: You’ve got a celebrity Cuala fan in RTÉ’s Des Cahill.
AO’M: Des is a great guy and we’re so lucky in the club to have him. He’s so ingrained in Gaelic games and sports, and he’s seen so much through his profession, so he’s a good man to have around the fringes.

DR: Speaking about Men’s Health Week. As a manager, what are some of the challenges arising in a dressing room during a season?
AO’M: The big thing in a dressing room is the culture. You’re trying to build supports for people to flourish and be at their best. You’re trying to create a space where people can really build deep connections with one another and foster that kind of sense of a tribe.

DR: How do you practically go about creating that safe, psychologically secure environment?
AO’M: There’s always a big piece of work in that. It’s crucially important to have a clear value set of what the group will stand for, what their identity will be. Once we know what the values are, what we stand for, what’s our identity, and we understand the behaviours that are acceptable within the group. The big piece then, the glue in all teams, is accountability.

DR: What are the red flags – the behaviours or signs – that suggest a culture is drifting?
AO’M: As an educator, you’re always looking in terms of people’s behaviours, the behaviours that they bring, the language that’s used around the dressing room and how people interact with each other. Their own personal energy is a big one as well. Are they not connecting? Are they finding excuses to step out of stuff? You’re constantly scanning, I’m always saying as a coach: You’re a detective.”

DR: You mention ‘behaviour’ a lot, what do you mean by that precisely?”
AO’M: “If you take a behaviour around the group, ultra-aggressive within a group, that might be, the language you use that would be intimidatory or the perspective that you might be, using put-downs, bullying, maybe intimidation. Behaviours that aren’t fitting to what you would call a high-performance environment where people need to be open and to be able to express themselves.”

DR: Could you give an example of where a player’s behaviour clashed with the group values?
AO’M: “I’ve often had to deal with players where their behaviours were completely out of line, out of sync with what the values of the group were. So those are the type of conversations that you obviously have to sit down with people then and explain very clearly in terms of the expectation that when you are part of a group, the way you carry yourself and so on. But good dialogue is key. Once you have a really good, deep connection with someone and there’s a huge amount of trust built. The truth is a great liberator.

DR: Can you give an example where truth really did become a liberator, for you or a player?
AO’M: From a player’s perspective, to give them the opportunity to speak their truth. If they feel in terms of being disgruntled or even a player that perhaps is being left out of a squad, perhaps feeling ashamed, perhaps feeling embarrassed and so on. So that’s where I’ve seen the truth can be a liberator when that’s shared, maybe with a manager.

DR: A lot of this seems rooted in cultural legacies – the ‘man up’ narrative, doesn’t it?
AO’M: True. We’re trying to break ground in that. We’ve all heard them growing up, the old cliché of ‘man up’, ‘big boys don’t cry.’ And those are cultural legacies that we’ve all inherited and we’ve all heard and have woven into our psychology.

DR: We’ve been talking about players, but how do you, as a manager, mind yourself?
AO’M: “The stressors and the pressures that come with the management of a team is huge. A big thing for me, and many managers would be, to have someone in terms of a mentoring role, maybe an older and more experienced person, but to also avail of the supports that you put in for players as well. I would be a big advocate of that and see the value in it in terms of creating that scaffolding around yourself to support yourself.

DR: “Do you personally have someone you dial into for guidance?”
AO’M: I do. I’ve been very lucky. I’ve always done so in my career, even when I was playing. It’s probably a two-way street. We bounce ideas off each other. But what it always does is, it opens up your own blind spots.

DR: Where do you think we stand right now in terms of men’s mental health in Ireland?
AO’M: “I think we’re getting a lot better. As a society, we’re moving in the right direction. Without a doubt, when it does come to men’s health issues and the discussions that we’re having around them, we are breaking ground and breaking those old taboos.”

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