Waterford hurling trainer Pat Flanagan insists GPS tracking systems are of huge benefit to inter-county managers.

His comments come after former Clare and Galway manager Ger Loughnane claimed some managers have become obsessed with sports science, and criticised the Galway management for making their players wear GPS devices during last Sunday's Allianz Hurling League semi-final defeat to Kilkenny.

"If you don't have a scientific basis to your training now you would be referred to as being in the dark ages, you would not be even considered," Flanagan said in the Irish Examiner.

"The days of doing laps of the field and running up and down sand dunes, that day is now long gone. Now we have GPS systems on the players so that on the sideline we know how hard a player is working, for how long and at what speed. There are masses of information being produced after every training session through the tracking system.

"But that is at the top end of the scale, and there is a huge emphasis on players to perform and they are trying to get an edge but the edge is not doing all the testing and that science stuff, that is not considered an edge anymore."

The former Kerry football trainer contends, however, that no amount of sports science will work if players aren't afforded sufficient rest periods after training and games.

"It's the appliance of very smart styles of training. The balance has shifted and what we try to do now is to train less often, but with greater results.

"I worry now, when I see some teams training more and more and more, in fact the science side is saying, we should be training less and less and less. Recovery periods are hugely important and basically we perform when we are recovering, not when we are in training, because hard training is an acute state you do not want to be in when you are trying to perform.

"I suppose there is a bit of misinformation out there with some teams, in that they believe that the more they train the better they are, in fact sometimes the more you train, the worse you are. You must train smart and use science for performance assessment that ensures you train better, and you do not fatigue the players." Tweet

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