CRUSADERS star Rory Hale has hailed the impact of Ray Wilkins on his playing and coaching career after setting up his own business – RH Coaching – during lockdown.
Still only 23, the former Aston Villa U23 captain is showing some of the best players in local football the tricks of the trade in his one-to-one sessions.
Hale has been training the likes of Cliftonville’s Joe Gormley and Aaron Donnelly as well as Larne winger Marty Donnelly over the past number of weeks. His daily sessions are booked out for the next three weeks.
Hale worked with the late Ray Wilkins when he was Aston Villa coach and learned a great deal from the former England international.
“I’m coaching one of the young kids at St Oliver Plunkett, wee Aaron Mackle, who’s just 13. He is absolute quality, unreal, he is a super talent,” Hale explained.
“He could go to England in time, he’s that good. He’s a central midfielder so I’m trying to coach him how to ping a ball with his [weaker] left foot.
“He was hitting the ball and it was shanking to the left or right, and I’ve taught him the technique in the same way Ray Wilkins taught me. It was all about your balance. So when you were using your weak foot you’re always off balance, so Ray Wilkins used to tell me to keep both arms at the same length and drill the ball.
“He would make me do this about 20 times until I got five or six in a row after training. He was brilliant. He kept the young lads behind and kept working on your weak foot. It wasn’t admiring that 40-yard ping with your good foot, it was 10 yards, 20 yards, 30 yards with your weaker foot.”
Hale added: “Stu Taylor was very good with me too. He’s now Paul Lambert’s first team coach at Ipswich. He was my 23s coach at Aston Villa. Mark Delaney was brilliant with me, a Villa legend.
“And Kenny Shiels (Derry City) was brilliant with me; he really worked on my technical ability. The maddest man ever who just loves football. Shane Keegan at Galway United got the best out of me. Stephen Clements, Steve Bruce’s first team coach, was really good… I picked up wee simple things from all of them. I just wish I had someone when I was 13 or 14; just things like checking your shoulder, having a scan, don’t turn blind…”
After leaving Villa, Hale ended up in Galway United before moving to Derry City – where his grandfather Danny Hale remains a Brandywell legend – and also earned his stripes with the Republic of Ireland U21 squad.
Before the pandemic the north Belfast native was some of the best football of his career at Seaview and still harbours a cross-channel return.
“At the minute, I just miss the match-day feeling and training every morning with the lads. You can do all the training you want but you’ll never beat the dressing-room banter,” he said.
“But I’ve really enjoyed coaching. I was doing a bit in the primary schools but I started doing the one-to-one training sessions and I was getting more out of those sessions. I was down with Peter Strain two or three times per week and I was loving the extra training.
“And you could see it on the pitch. I felt I was fitter than most players and technically I felt much better. So that’s when I thought I would give the training a go and train people who wanted to get fitter and better, technically.
“It all depends on a player’s level of ability, their level of fitness. I know that Marty and Aaron Donnelly train every day so I could put them through a tough session. It just depends on where a player is at.
“I would always have a session planned for every player the night before. I need to be organised and have good preparation. There is no way that I could turn up to a session and think off the cuff and just fire out stuff. Everything is in place.
“All the drills are set up and then you tailor the session for that person. Everything is football related and improving your technical ability and is related to the position a player plays.”
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RORY Hale would be reluctant to make a return to football unless Irish League players were tested for Covid19. The Crusaders midfielder’s mother is deemed high risk to the deadly virus while team-mate Philip Lowry works in the Royal Victoria Hospital. Both players feel the best option is to void the Irish Premiership.
“Philip Lowry works as a pharmacist in the Royal,” said Hale.
“All it takes is one person to get it and that means our full team would have to self-isolate for two weeks and can’t go to work. Unless they introduced testing, I don’t think I would go back. You see the likes of Derry City players getting tested, so it should be the same here.”
Regardless of what the 12 senior clubs decide on how to end the Danske Premiership, Hale feels there is more chance of the Irish Cup being concluded.
“I would definitely play the Irish Cup because I think there’s a way of playing it and paying the clubs to play it. Play the semi-finals and get the BBC involved, have the final on the Saturday and Windsor Park is a massive place, so they could sort out some social distancing to get some fans into watch the game.
“As regards the rest of the league, it’s not financially possible to play games behind closed doors here.”
