Lincoln Recruitment launched their Q3 employment outlook this morning in front of an excited and fully engaged audience of 300 from across every significant sector in Dublin business. Shay Dalton’s words of wisdom on returning emigrants and increasing demand for IT contractors might not normally have that level of appeal but he did have a strong hook on which to hang the Lincoln story.
Ian Madigan and Paul Flynn are two of the highest achieving and most personable stars in their respective sports of rugby and gaelic football. Together with MC Dave McIntyre from Newstalk they gave as good a performance as if they were out on the pitch as they will be in ten days time at the Millennium Stadium and Croke Park.
Madigan revealed how he had been asked last year by Joe Schmidt to work on the core skills of a scrum half so as to provide potential cover in that role over the coming weeks. He could play anywhere from there to centre but was willing to do whatever was asked to give himself the best chance of getting on the plane.
He spent time after time working with his brother Dave who had played the position in his own career, and Eoin Reddan who fills the role at Leinster and has been a mentor throughout his provincial career.
“It’s the hard work you do, under good coaches, to fit into a style of play with the team that makes the difference to get you to the biggest occasions,” he revealed.
“I would do whatever was asked of me to be part of this team going to the World Cup.”
Comfort zone
“It does demand a lot of focus and willingness to think beyond yourself and beyond your comfort zone but that’s what we do.”
Both men credited the influence of coaches Joe Schmidt and Pat Gilroy as being critical at pivotal moments in their developing careers.
“I played on teams and development squads all the way through without ever being the best player on the team but I hung in there,” said Flynn.
“When Pat became manager of Dublin he saw something in me that fitted his idea of how Dublin should play and that gave me the confidence to keep looking for that little improvement every year to make the team stronger.”
A Footballer of the Year and four All Star Awards with two All Ireland titles (and counting) suggests it was the right thing to do.
Expectation
The question of pressure and expectation is one that both have to face but both put aside as much as possible.
“We set our own expectations as a group at the start of the season and it’s more important not to let down those in the room at that time as it is to win everything and be held up as winners or losers by media,” said Flynn.
“Everything at the elite level is about short rather than long terms,” added Madigan.
“It’s the accumulation of meeting short term goals, of playing in the moment and doing what you can to make that moment as good as you can that is how we measure success and are measured by the coaches.”
The room heard about the players views on being role models:
“We are very conscious that people see what we do but please don’t hold a player to account for what might happen in the moment. It can be intense beyond what most people might imagine and if we do slip we make it up through being a part of our communities whenever we can.”
On the importance of rest:
“We know we should but work and life means it is not always possible. Sometimes you might wonder how much more we could do physically if we had more rest,” mused Denis Bastick who joined the panel towards the end.
Stars of the past
And on which stars from the past they would love to have in their team now at the peak of their powers. Keith Wood for Madigan, Jason Sherlock for Bastick and Kevin Moran for Paul Flynn.
This was a morning that people will remember. It was a way that Lincoln could up their own game in people’s minds and that in itself deserves to bring success to the bottom line.
