Mansfield Town’s manager has a novel strategy for keeping the team in the Football League

Adam Murray is adapting the methodology used so successfully by the British cycling team at London 2012

Things are tough for Mansfield Town right now. The Stags are only seven points above the drop zone in League 2, meaning that a poor finish to the season could see them drop into non-league football. So, manager Adam Murray is pulling out all the stops to give his team every chance of success and one of them is not one you'd usually associate with football; correct hand washing technique. Murray told BBC Radio Nottingham: "Teaching the lads to wash their hands properly could cut 2% of illness, which might win us three points," he said. "We need to take everything up a notch," said Murray. "I am somebody who looks for the 'one per cents'. "I have a guy I work with whose main role is [identifying] marginal gains. He goes into some of the top companies and looks at where he can make them better. "I am working with him on certain things at the moment - the sports scientists, the analysts, the strength and conditioning guys, the youth set-up. "We are dealing with a sports psychologist who comes in once a week and does group work and individual work. It is going down to the grains of the details, which one per cents we can change, then we throw them all back together and see if we get a better percentage coming out." 'Marginal gains' was the mantra of Dave Brailsford, the mastermind of Britain's success in cycling. Brailsford advocated attention to lots of tiny details, such as correct handwashing, believing that all those small gains combined would add up to be the deciding gain in the long run. It is hard to argue with Brailsford's success so we have to applaud Murray for adopting it. We fully expect GAA bainisteoirs up and down the country to put in similar policies before the end of the weekend.