It’s been a really good first month under new management
Waterford FC manager Jon Daly watches on at a recent training session at the SETU Arena.
When the pre-season games get underway, you know it is getting close to the real thing: the league starting. So far, we have played a couple of games; we beat both Bray Wanderers and Cobh Ramblers, and they were very good tests for us.
Winning these games isn’t the priority at the moment; the main emphasis is on improving fitness and getting used to the playing style the new manager, Jon Daly, wants to implement at the club.
It is a good habit to get into as early as possible. We saw last year during the season how easy it was to get caught in a rut of bad results, so we are trying to make sure that doesn’t happen again this season, and it is a season of looking forward and not backwards. In the first two pre-season games, nearly all players played 45 minutes as we eased into the season and built up match fitness. That will ramp up in the coming weeks, and the games will start coming thick and fast for us.
It has been a really good first month under the new management team of Jon and his assistant manager, Richard Foster. Training has been intense and tough, and that is exactly how you want a pre-season to be. Above all, training has still been enjoyable too, which is a huge help. The squad is starting to take shape, and some of the business the club has done this offseason is impressive.
Re-signing Conan Noonan, who spent last season with us on loan from Shamrock Rovers, was a real coup for the club. I honestly didn’t think we were going to be able to get Conan back after the brilliant season he had for us.
There will no doubt be more signings to come before the season’s opening game at the RSC when we face Shelbourne on February 6th. When the season finished last November, there were a lot of signings announced across the league over the course of the month, and then things went very quiet on the signing front. I expect the transfer window to really take off over the next two weeks as teams finalise their squad lists.
Pre-season is always a time when trialists come and go at football clubs. Over the years, I have seen hundreds of trialists come into sessions, and on occasion or two, I have been that trialist.
It is a tough time for a player coming in on trial to try to earn a contract and a job. Pressure is on you from the moment you step foot into the building. You may know no one there, be in an unfamiliar place, and have to hit the ground running to impress, because first impressions last a long time.
One thing I have always done as a player is try to help trialists as much as I can. I have had the experience of being in their position, and it is uncomfortable, and if players are being distant, it can lead to even more nerves for the player.
When I was at Sheffield Wednesday on trial, a couple of players were really good to me, most notably Clinton Morrison and Gary Madine. They were both fellow strikers, and rather than being worried about me coming in and possibly taking a position from them in the team, they were the opposite.
They made me feel very comfortable from the moment I got there, and they were both very big characters in the dressing room, which in turn probably made the other players make more of an effort too.
It was just the little things, too, that really helped, like bringing me out for food or to the snooker hall in the evenings, so I wasn’t just stuck in a hotel alone. I learned a lot from those two, especially.
No player ever wants to go on trial at a club, but for a variety of reasons, sometimes you have no choice. Lack of game time at a previous club or becoming a free agent after a bad injury are two of the main reasons players come in on trial.
There have been occasions when trialists have come in and been excellent, and the club wants to sign that player, but a contract just can’t be agreed between the two parties, or when a player plays in a trial game and ends up being signed by the opposition.
