COLM NALLY IS a name synonymous with the cutting edge of Gaelic football coaching. A former Dublin minor and Louth senior goalkeeper, he has been a coach in Louth, Kildare, Meath and Cavan among others, and is a GAA Master Tutor.
In recent years, he was a member of the Jim Gavin-led Football Review Committee that has transformed the spectacle of Gaelic football. Recently, he published his second coaching book, Modern Performance Activities for Gaelic Football, to introduce another generation of coaches to a series of exercises concentrating on the new realities of Gaelic football.
He talks to The 42 here about the reception of the FRC rules, the changes of the game, and how coaching of Gaelic football has been transformed.
Declan Bogue: 2026 is being talked about widely as unquestionably the greatest-ever season of Gaelic football. Given your role with the Football Review Committee, this must be immensely gratifying?
Colm Nally: It was beyond what we expected in terms of so many good matches.
The narrative around the new rules is, no matter what you try to do, it still lends itself to patches of chaos. And that’s what you want out of field sports, is that there is no structure everywhere.
There is certainly a structure over kickouts. There’s structure in defence. Teams are putting structure on their attack. But there’s still a bit of chaos.
Like, Mayo’s goal in the All-Ireland final was a break and the ball was batted across (David McBrien to Darragh Beirne) tennis-style for the goal. That’s not structure. That’s not planned. That’s you being allowed to express yourself and be creative.
I think one of the greatest successes of the new rules is allowing patches of creativity.
One of the most dangerous questions you can ask as a coach or as a player is ‘why?’ If you are asking why, you are stifling creativity, because people then stop when they get the answer.
So the ‘why?’ has gone out of it now. I just think there is lots of room for a mistake to be punished: a non-structured attack, a long shot for a two-pointer that you chase in.
People might say that it is not organised and it is not coached, but coaching, half the time, is not getting in the way of your players.
So I see a lot of plays in the game where it lends itself to chaos, and chaos is paying off.
DB: Just to stay on the FRC, we had Jim Gavin popping up occasionally this summer on Off The Ball, and he became the most compelling voice and authority on coaching. Presumably this is the version of Gavin you had chairing the FRC rather than his façade as Dublin manager?
CN: My own personal journey, I played underage (Dublin minors) with Jim. I go back a long time with him. We would have met each other; my father and brother served in the army as well, so we would have known him through that.
Meeting back up for the FRC, it was the Jim I knew from the minors; mad to learn, open to everything, all ideas.
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Some of the discussions we had, you could see his personality coming out. I could still remember one of the first days when we were getting the group together, he said, ‘Just imagine you are creating this game from scratch.’
That was brilliant in terms of seeing people like Malachy O’Rourke, coming up with a different shape of goal, like a fork, something similar to Aussie Rules.
The point being that Jim was getting you to empty all your thoughts and preconceptions on how the game is based and starting from scratch.
He was going to be governed by the group. It wasn’t just his opinions. He was chairing it, but he wasn’t overbearing and was completely open to any suggestions.
Furthermore, he was great fun to be with, really interesting and he had amazing knowledge of different sports. That threw me a bit as he had great knowledge of lacrosse, American football, basketball and was well aware of all their changes throughout the years and adjustments that they made through the years.
And then you throw Jarlath (Burns, GAA President) into the mix. He basically said to Jim that he had one chance to rip this up, and Jim took that on board. So to have a fearless leader in that role?
After a few weeks, everyone began to build that trust. You knew that your ideas were not going to be rubbished.
I am sure every FRC member had people coming up to them suggesting this and that. I know I did. A good friend I have who played for Kildare for years, Brian Lacey, he is a real student of the game and he was feeding me great ideas.
He reckoned if you brought in the mark outside the arc, that could work, and that was discussed. Jim would have been open to that and we had a good discussion about that.
The ideas were coming from far and wide. Nothing was rubbished. Everything got a fair hearing, which was brilliant.
The solo and go was discussed with previous review committees. There was a lot of work done on the solo and go and it was brought back out.
DB: The first year felt like coaches and players were only getting a handle on a new game. 2026 had far more progression and innovation. What are the key coaching changes for you?
CN: I am coaching a long, long time, but sometimes when you look at a coach’s journey, it’s different. I spent 10 or 12 years coaching underage, Newtown Blues. I was involved in Louth development squads for around 10 years. That was before I went and took any adult teams.
I know a lot of coaches skip all that, and they are lucky enough to come in at that level, and more and more coaches are ‘permanent’ coaches. There are a lot of coaches with county teams and they don’t work. I am a full-time worker.
I had that chat with Jim one day and I asked him, “How did he do it?” And he said, ‘Colm, it was just long hours.’
Colm Nally with Jim Gavin at one of the FRC 'sandbox' games. Dan Clohessy / INPHO
Dan Clohessy / INPHO / INPHO
He told me stories about flying in from Amsterdam and going straight to training, not getting home till 12 or 1am.
When you spend a lot of time with teams, one of the traits is you create your own language. You see physical language with symbols, such as an arm in the air from the ball carrier, and then various calls.
As you go on as a group, you are constantly adding to that. I would have been aware of Dublin doing that. They have certain kickouts and there are times you might not see that kickout for a season, and two seasons later on, you see it a lot.
That’s because they have created that language. That’s what coaching is: you throw everything in and you empower your teams. You revisit things now and again.
That Dublin team, things meant different in year five than they would have meant in year one. Indeed, when you see teams sticking an arm in the air now, it can mean to load up on the edge of the square and put the big men in to create space outside the arc for the two-pointer.
So they might be using the same symbol or sign, but it could mean a different thing. To me, that’s good coaching. It’s trying to communicate through the noise and chaos of Croke Park. Hand signals, gestures like that, all that stuff remains.
When I was coaching underage, by the time you take them from U14 to seniors, they have developed their own style and communication skills.
DB: So what are the priorities on the training ground?
CN: First of all, the kickout. You used to have that short pass to the corner-back. And there was nothing in that, popping the ball 15 yards left or right.
So now, every team is going after the kickout. They might concede in a certain area with the view to putting pressure on the next play, but generally you are trying to retain possession on your own kickout and then rob your opposition.
Colm Nally taking a kickout for Louth in the NFL Final of 2000 against Meath. Billy Stickland / INPHO
Billy Stickland / INPHO / INPHO
The next would be the transition via the footpass. This is getting more and more popular where you see that 30 or 40-metre pop pass.
You get a pop pass out of a turnover, you will get a shot on goal.
And the third one, and it might sound obvious, is shooting. You are getting more and more opportunities to shoot.
The two-point arc is amazing. Teams are aware that the opposition are trying to get their shooter into position and there is attention to stop you getting the shot, and trying to make others take that shot on.
So everybody has to improve on their long-range shooting because you are going to get more chances as everyone is obsessed with stopping the key men.
They are the three points I would be focusing most on now: the kickout, the pop pass out of defence, and shooting. I think teams are getting huge improvement in those areas.
The five pillars of any sport are your technical, tactical, physical, mental and lifestyle.
Lifestyle is up to the players and that is all looked after. But your mental path, and what I mean by mental is having the sort of game awareness of knowing where and when to shoot, when to stop.
Game IQ is crucial now. You have to be able to read the game and the flow of the game, when to speed it up, when to slow it down. With the countdown clock, everything is calculated now, how to stay in the game, how to see the clock down.
DB: Where did the motivation come to produce another coaching book?
CN: I have a full-time job, but I am a volunteer coach. I would be a Master Tutor for GAA. I have been rolling out GAA courses and everybody comes to you after, and they say, ‘Have you any drills for that thing?’
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The front cover of the training manual.
And so I started documenting them, putting them down and they were very popular. It was a natural progression to bring out a book and then I started getting asked if I was bringing one out for the new rules.
So that’s where it came from. It’s just a collection of activities and games, where you are going to be practising some of the scenarios that you see in the new game.
For instance, if you see Armagh play tomorrow, if they are attacking up the right wing, there could be a 3 v 4 going down the one wing with a 2 v 1 on the other side and a bit of space.
So I was coming up with some ideas to mirror the game. That would be my approach and I would document everything then. I would share them with a few friends: Brian Lacey, Colin Kelly, fellas like that, and they said, ‘If we had this in a book, it would help.’
So that’s where the idea came from.
I would get a lot of feedback from coaches who would be rushing home from work, have no time to plan a session, so they sit in the car, open it up and say they are going to do this, that and the other.
And when I hear that, I know that’s a good resource.
Unless you are a full-time coach or manager, you don’t have time for that.
I think Gaelic football is as popular as it has ever been now. Because of that, when you are heading in to train Newtown Blues U16s, you are given half a pitch.
You can’t play a game, you might only have 14 players, so what the book does is give you shooting activities, tackling activities, small games. Stuff that you can do and make it relevant to improving players.
That’s where it all has come from, and the feedback has been massive, and I struggle to keep up with it, to be honest.
We were just chatting there, and we have sent well over 100 books to overseas, to Australia, America, UK and Europe.
The interest is fantastic, and we are definitely well into a couple of thousands that have gone around the country.
That gives you an indication of the number of people who are looking for this information.
To order your copy of ‘Modern Performance Activities for Gaelic Football’, email: cntrainingmanual@gmail.com
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'Chaos is paying off': An insider's guide to how Gaelic football coaching is being transformed
COLM NALLY IS a name synonymous with the cutting edge of Gaelic football coaching. A former Dublin minor and Louth senior goalkeeper, he has been a coach in Louth, Kildare, Meath and Cavan among others, and is a GAA Master Tutor.
In recent years, he was a member of the Jim Gavin-led Football Review Committee that has transformed the spectacle of Gaelic football. Recently, he published his second coaching book, Modern Performance Activities for Gaelic Football, to introduce another generation of coaches to a series of exercises concentrating on the new realities of Gaelic football.
He talks to The 42 here about the reception of the FRC rules, the changes of the game, and how coaching of Gaelic football has been transformed.
Declan Bogue: 2026 is being talked about widely as unquestionably the greatest-ever season of Gaelic football. Given your role with the Football Review Committee, this must be immensely gratifying?
Colm Nally: It was beyond what we expected in terms of so many good matches.
The narrative around the new rules is, no matter what you try to do, it still lends itself to patches of chaos. And that’s what you want out of field sports, is that there is no structure everywhere.
There is certainly a structure over kickouts. There’s structure in defence. Teams are putting structure on their attack. But there’s still a bit of chaos.
Like, Mayo’s goal in the All-Ireland final was a break and the ball was batted across (David McBrien to Darragh Beirne) tennis-style for the goal. That’s not structure. That’s not planned. That’s you being allowed to express yourself and be creative.
I think one of the greatest successes of the new rules is allowing patches of creativity.
One of the most dangerous questions you can ask as a coach or as a player is ‘why?’ If you are asking why, you are stifling creativity, because people then stop when they get the answer.
So the ‘why?’ has gone out of it now. I just think there is lots of room for a mistake to be punished: a non-structured attack, a long shot for a two-pointer that you chase in.
People might say that it is not organised and it is not coached, but coaching, half the time, is not getting in the way of your players.
So I see a lot of plays in the game where it lends itself to chaos, and chaos is paying off.
DB: Just to stay on the FRC, we had Jim Gavin popping up occasionally this summer on Off The Ball, and he became the most compelling voice and authority on coaching. Presumably this is the version of Gavin you had chairing the FRC rather than his façade as Dublin manager?
CN: My own personal journey, I played underage (Dublin minors) with Jim. I go back a long time with him. We would have met each other; my father and brother served in the army as well, so we would have known him through that.
Meeting back up for the FRC, it was the Jim I knew from the minors; mad to learn, open to everything, all ideas.
Some of the discussions we had, you could see his personality coming out. I could still remember one of the first days when we were getting the group together, he said, ‘Just imagine you are creating this game from scratch.’
That was brilliant in terms of seeing people like Malachy O’Rourke, coming up with a different shape of goal, like a fork, something similar to Aussie Rules.
The point being that Jim was getting you to empty all your thoughts and preconceptions on how the game is based and starting from scratch.
He was going to be governed by the group. It wasn’t just his opinions. He was chairing it, but he wasn’t overbearing and was completely open to any suggestions.
Furthermore, he was great fun to be with, really interesting and he had amazing knowledge of different sports. That threw me a bit as he had great knowledge of lacrosse, American football, basketball and was well aware of all their changes throughout the years and adjustments that they made through the years.
After a few weeks, everyone began to build that trust. You knew that your ideas were not going to be rubbished.
I am sure every FRC member had people coming up to them suggesting this and that. I know I did. A good friend I have who played for Kildare for years, Brian Lacey, he is a real student of the game and he was feeding me great ideas.
He reckoned if you brought in the mark outside the arc, that could work, and that was discussed. Jim would have been open to that and we had a good discussion about that.
The ideas were coming from far and wide. Nothing was rubbished. Everything got a fair hearing, which was brilliant.
The solo and go was discussed with previous review committees. There was a lot of work done on the solo and go and it was brought back out.
DB: The first year felt like coaches and players were only getting a handle on a new game. 2026 had far more progression and innovation. What are the key coaching changes for you?
CN: I am coaching a long, long time, but sometimes when you look at a coach’s journey, it’s different. I spent 10 or 12 years coaching underage, Newtown Blues. I was involved in Louth development squads for around 10 years. That was before I went and took any adult teams.
I know a lot of coaches skip all that, and they are lucky enough to come in at that level, and more and more coaches are ‘permanent’ coaches. There are a lot of coaches with county teams and they don’t work. I am a full-time worker.
I had that chat with Jim one day and I asked him, “How did he do it?” And he said, ‘Colm, it was just long hours.’
He told me stories about flying in from Amsterdam and going straight to training, not getting home till 12 or 1am.
When you spend a lot of time with teams, one of the traits is you create your own language. You see physical language with symbols, such as an arm in the air from the ball carrier, and then various calls.
As you go on as a group, you are constantly adding to that. I would have been aware of Dublin doing that. They have certain kickouts and there are times you might not see that kickout for a season, and two seasons later on, you see it a lot.
That’s because they have created that language. That’s what coaching is: you throw everything in and you empower your teams. You revisit things now and again.
That Dublin team, things meant different in year five than they would have meant in year one. Indeed, when you see teams sticking an arm in the air now, it can mean to load up on the edge of the square and put the big men in to create space outside the arc for the two-pointer.
So they might be using the same symbol or sign, but it could mean a different thing. To me, that’s good coaching. It’s trying to communicate through the noise and chaos of Croke Park. Hand signals, gestures like that, all that stuff remains.
When I was coaching underage, by the time you take them from U14 to seniors, they have developed their own style and communication skills.
DB: So what are the priorities on the training ground?
CN: First of all, the kickout. You used to have that short pass to the corner-back. And there was nothing in that, popping the ball 15 yards left or right.
So now, every team is going after the kickout. They might concede in a certain area with the view to putting pressure on the next play, but generally you are trying to retain possession on your own kickout and then rob your opposition.
The next would be the transition via the footpass. This is getting more and more popular where you see that 30 or 40-metre pop pass.
You get a pop pass out of a turnover, you will get a shot on goal.
And the third one, and it might sound obvious, is shooting. You are getting more and more opportunities to shoot.
The two-point arc is amazing. Teams are aware that the opposition are trying to get their shooter into position and there is attention to stop you getting the shot, and trying to make others take that shot on.
So everybody has to improve on their long-range shooting because you are going to get more chances as everyone is obsessed with stopping the key men.
They are the three points I would be focusing most on now: the kickout, the pop pass out of defence, and shooting. I think teams are getting huge improvement in those areas.
The five pillars of any sport are your technical, tactical, physical, mental and lifestyle.
Lifestyle is up to the players and that is all looked after. But your mental path, and what I mean by mental is having the sort of game awareness of knowing where and when to shoot, when to stop.
Game IQ is crucial now. You have to be able to read the game and the flow of the game, when to speed it up, when to slow it down. With the countdown clock, everything is calculated now, how to stay in the game, how to see the clock down.
DB: Where did the motivation come to produce another coaching book?
CN: I have a full-time job, but I am a volunteer coach. I would be a Master Tutor for GAA. I have been rolling out GAA courses and everybody comes to you after, and they say, ‘Have you any drills for that thing?’
And so I started documenting them, putting them down and they were very popular. It was a natural progression to bring out a book and then I started getting asked if I was bringing one out for the new rules.
So that’s where it came from. It’s just a collection of activities and games, where you are going to be practising some of the scenarios that you see in the new game.
For instance, if you see Armagh play tomorrow, if they are attacking up the right wing, there could be a 3 v 4 going down the one wing with a 2 v 1 on the other side and a bit of space.
So I was coming up with some ideas to mirror the game. That would be my approach and I would document everything then. I would share them with a few friends: Brian Lacey, Colin Kelly, fellas like that, and they said, ‘If we had this in a book, it would help.’
So that’s where the idea came from.
And when I hear that, I know that’s a good resource.
Unless you are a full-time coach or manager, you don’t have time for that.
I think Gaelic football is as popular as it has ever been now. Because of that, when you are heading in to train Newtown Blues U16s, you are given half a pitch.
You can’t play a game, you might only have 14 players, so what the book does is give you shooting activities, tackling activities, small games. Stuff that you can do and make it relevant to improving players.
That’s where it all has come from, and the feedback has been massive, and I struggle to keep up with it, to be honest.
We were just chatting there, and we have sent well over 100 books to overseas, to Australia, America, UK and Europe.
The interest is fantastic, and we are definitely well into a couple of thousands that have gone around the country.
That gives you an indication of the number of people who are looking for this information.
To order your copy of ‘Modern Performance Activities for Gaelic Football’, email: cntrainingmanual@gmail.com
**
Check out the latest episode of The 42′s GAA Weekly podcast here
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