The race to be the Underdog

bruschi

I find it really amusing in a lot of sport, but Irish more so than any others and particularly GAA, how teams fight to declare themselves the underdog and how the opposition are the favorites. And then the fans go on about all the hear from the media is how they are tipping the other team.

If you go onto the Dublin and Kerry threads for a clear example of this:

Lot of folk in the meeja tipping Kerry - lovely!

Lads, Tis Kerrys AI to lose, sure the dubs have not been tested and shure its Kerry who are the reigning champs, we've no hope

at the way the pundits are predicting for Sunday, we may as well not bother turning up.

Dublins to lose according to almost everybody.

Just the way they want it. Let all the talk and pressure be on Dublin.
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Noting better then proving fellas wrong

Let them talk up Dublin,

Great way to have it

At least in both sides there are others who are calling a win and saying they should be confident, but you cant have 2 favorites, and you cant have both sides saying the media are saying the opposition will win and use it for your own motivation. Some interviews with players too after games, saying the media was against them and thought they'd fail, when they could be raging hot favorites with everyone tipping them

It's just a funny sideshow that happens every year for finals or big games. Do people think it works to be an underdog? Do you fight harder because of it with a chip on the shoulder attitude? Or would you be better being confident and knowing you are a better team and going out to prove yourself?

ProudDUB

Add in the weight of history attached to the whole Dublin V Kerry thing and it becomes an even bigger labyrinth of craic and codology that you have to navigate thru. It's all largely media driven imo, as I seriously doubt if Stephen Cluxton was thinking about how many AI medals Bomber Liston has, when he was lining up to kick "that" free back in 2011.

But that stuff feeds into peoples opinions on forums such as this. No one wants to seem cocky or arrogant and pimp their crowd as favourites too much... but no one wants to seem cowed or over awed by the other lot either. It's all a bit mad. There are four days left and my head is melted already. I just wish I could crawl into bed and wake up on Sunday morning.

DuffleBag

I'd prefer a bit more honesty. I'd love if a player just said it how it was instead of dancing around it. "We came up here to win, we knew we could win, we knew we are the better team, and we won". Or similar before a game. This posting up quotes on dressing room walls and the likes to motivate fellas is bollocks. Something in the same line as Conor McGregor's confidence but maybe not as confident. Honesty.

CrabRevolution

Being an Irish organisation, the biggest sin you can commit in the GAA is to reckon you should beat the opposition. 95% of the time, the favorite wins. Despite this, they will downplay it and claim the scoreboard lied, and that it could have gone either way, see Brian Cody after handing out a 30 point pasting to some poor team.

On the odd occasion that the favorite loses, God help them. You'll never see as much scorn poured on a team as after being beaten by an underdog, even if you were only a 20/21 favorite. To think you were good, and then to lose is anathema to GAA fans, and they will mention it countless times afterwards to kick you when down (remember the Tyrone U21 manager presenting newspaper cuttings predicting a Roscommon win to the press after they beat Roscommon?).

To avoid this, most managers and fans will claim to be the underdog, even if they reckon they are odds on favorites. This means should you lose, you can claim you never thought you'd win anyway, and if you win, you can claim you've outdone yourselves after being written off and predicted to lose .....by yourselves.

keane2097

You can't blame teams really when every time a favourite is beaten they are panned for over confidence.

Particularly for Dublin, they are accused of believing their own hype (whatever that even means) every time something goes against them despite the fact that a more professional and level headed bunch you'd do well to meet from what I can see.

The reality is whoever the bookies make favourites doesn't matter in the least to how either team will perform except in very rare circumstances. It certainly won't make a blind bit of difference to this particular coinflip.

TCDStudent1

I think it's more of a fans thing rather than a players thing. I know that I have never been part of a team going into a match thinking "We will win this handy". The closest any team that I played for ever came to that was thinking "We should win this".

However, you do look at some fans and wonder. I was at the Galway - Roscommon U21 match in Tuam earlier in the year. The way some Roscommon fans were talking, you would swear they were going to win a senior All Ireland this year! I definitely got a sense of over confidence from them, and then you wonder if that rubbed off on their players. Were they over confident in their matches v Sligo & Fermanagh? Perhaps.... On "A Year til Sunday", there is a famous clip of a Kildare fan walking into Croke Park saying "I think it's in the bag". Again, Kildare were hot favourites for the final that year and you'd wonder if that had an impact.

zombieHanalei

I hate this nonsense, insist the other team is the favourite and then whine about how "everyone wrote us off, nobody gave us a chance" afterwards if they win.

Davy is a great man for that stuff, he constantly claims he doesn't care what anyone says or thinks yet at the same time he knows exactly what everyone says and thinks. I don't get why so many in GAA concern themselves so deeply with what pundits and opposition and the media say. Any player or team's primary concern should their own performance, and the performance of their opposition and how to combat that. The focus should only be on what happens on the pitch, everything else is irrelevant. But, for some bizarre reason, a lot of teams buy into this line of thinking...


Almost strikes me as a defence mechanism, so that in the event of defeat it doesn't hurt as much to lose a game you have convinced yourself everyone thought you were going to lose anyway. Losing a game you were expected to win is harder to take. (Conversely, winning a game you were expecting to lose can feel more satisfactory than winning one you were expecting to win)

corny

bruschi wrote: »

Do people think it works to be an underdog? Do you fight harder because of it with a chip on the shoulder attitude?

The majority of the time its makes no difference imo. Especially in a highly professional set up where the focus is entirely internal and on the process.

bruschi wrote: »

Or would you be better being confident and knowing you are a better team and going out to prove yourself?

Well you'd have to separate words from inner belief because you could spout a load of tripe that convinces no one, including yourself. However, I wouldn't see being overly confident as a negative. On the contrary an unshakable confidence is a hallmark of all great sportsmen.

bruschi

I think in part, in GAA anyway, that history or reputation may also play a part in it too.

For example, Wexford were challenging Dublin for Leinsters a few years back, and I have no doubt that we were actually a better team in a couple of those games. A couple of small things went against them, and they eventually faded out. Not being within the camp, or not playing, but I dont know did they ever fully believe they were better than Dublin? They were down as underdogs, and knew it would be a pretty big upset if they did beat them, and when the opportunity arose (particularly in the drawn first round game and the Leinster final with the own goal) they didnt take what was in front of them.

A team should focus on its' own ability and confidence, and I think had Wexford been more confident in themselves that time, they would have won. Whereas on the flip side, you had a Dublin team oozing in confidence, whether rightly or wrongly, and they always knew that they would see it through.

A belief in your ability is a better trait to have on the field than one of trying to be an underdog and play with a chip on your shoulder.