Since the success of Armagh footballers in 2002, team-building techniques are now in vogue with county squads.

The latest trend sees players aping corporate executives on activity days to strengthen group bonding. Kevin Daly charts the course of this recent development.

The phenomenon of teambuilding in GAA is not a new one but the professional approach to it most certainly is.

In the not too distant past the ‘Local' was the focal point for all so called teambuilding activities with much of it forgotten by the next morning! However, as the GAA modernised and teams took a more professional approach to preparation, team management began to slowly but surely realise the important role that proper teambuilding activities could play. This revolution began initially with the Ulster teams and more specifically with Armagh.

Having won a number of Ulster titles in the late 1990s and the beginning of the new millennium, Armagh manager Joe Kernan and his players were desperate for All-Ireland success. Any and all methods were considered by Kernan in the quest for the elusive Sam Maguire. The embracing of team-building was one of these. In 2002, every member of the Armagh squad wore orange and black wristbands as a symbol of their unity as a squad (a move that also would be made in later years by the Cork hurling squad). After years of heartbreak, Armagh finally made the breakthrough in 2002. Team-building had been vindicated.

Following this historic success, Armagh continued to lead the team-building revolution in a bid to secure back-to-back All-Ireland titles - a feat that has eluded every county since 1990. In 2003, Kernan introduced a mysterious teambuilding symbol - a triangle with a circle inside, to the county's jerseys, initially stitching it onto the sleeve but later moving it to the back of the jersey just underneath the collar, to enable players to focus on it in the pre-match parade. What the symbol actually meant has been the subject of much speculation, with claims that it was an ancient Chinese TriHarmony symbol, with the circle signifying unity and the triangle standing for strength. However, the most likely explanation is that it was an intricate symbol devised by the Armagh management as a unique tool to enable the Armagh players to focus and clear their minds prior to big championship games. Despite falling at the final hurdle to Tyrone, Armagh had almost become the first team in over to a decade to retain the Sam Maguire Cup thanks in no small part to the role that teambuilding had played.

In the wake of Armagh's perceived success with various team-building methods, many other GAA teams began to experiment with and embrace teambuilding exercises.  Ulster teams such as Monaghan and Tyrone recently embarked on teambuilding days with professional team-builders Ireland Xtreme in order to prepare themselves in the best possible way for the 2007 championship.

Team-building is now sweeping across the GAA landscape with almost all inter-county managements now openly accepting it as a key element of preparation. However, it's not only county teams that are embracing the team-building phenomenon. Club teams are following suit and are now also investing in team-building exercises as a method to ensure that team spirit remains at high levels despite the inevitable distractions of the inter-county championships.

Since the dawn of the new millennium team-building has become an integral part of almost every GAA team's championship preparations. It is undoubtedly yet another indication of the increasingly professional approach taken by every GAA team. As one former Irish captain memorably stated "Fail to prepare, Prepare to Fail".