Dubs deliver on blueprint

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Dubs deliver on blueprint

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http://www.herald.ie/sport/hurling/dubs ... 36638.html

Dubs deliver on blueprint
Eight years on from the masterplan for change, hurling is in a happier place. But how many of the targets have been met?

DARK DAY: Dublin's John McCaffrey in action against Westmeath's Darren McCormack in the Leinster SHC quarterfinal of May 2006 which the midlanders won 0-13 to 0-11.

By Frank Roche

Thursday July 23 2009

It seems like a different era, even though it happened this very decade.

Back in November 2001, the Dublin Hurling Review Group published a "Blueprint for Change and Success".

The need for change was glaringly self-evident: Dublin hurlers hadn't reached an All-Ireland senior final since 1961 and they hadn't lifted the Liam MacCarthy Cup since 1938.

"There must be an acceptance that the manner in which hurling in Dublin has been administered over the last 40 years has not been acceptable," the blueprint's introduction began.

Almost eight years on, Dublin hurling stands in a much happier place. Nowhere will this be more evident than in Thurles on Sunday, when Anthony Daly's troops go chasing a place in the All-Ireland senior hurling semi-finals. We repeat -- senior hurling.

What's more, they enter Semple Stadium not as some rags-to-riches fairytale outfit doomed to endure glorious failure. Instead, they come as marginal bookies' favourites to overcome a Limerick side that, lest we forget, reached an All-Ireland final only two years ago.

As Sunday beckons, it seems an appropriate juncture to recall that Dublin hurling blueprint -- and to ask whether the targets contained within have actually been met.

A VISION FOR DUBLIN HURLING

The Dublin Hurling Review Group had a vision, and a massively ambitious one at that. "Hurling to be the number one Gaelic sport in Dublin by 2010" was the first headline-grabbing aspiration. "Dublin to be an All-Ireland winning hurling county by 2008" was the second. With just one year to go, small ball sceptics will dismiss the first vision as more pipe than dream.

Dublin footballers have won the last five Leinster SFC titles whereas the hurlers have only just played in (and lost) their first provincial SHC decider since 1991.

The respective Leinster final attendances this month provide further proof of the quantum leap still to be made: you had 29,427 watching the hurling showpiece compared to 74,573 watching Dublin/Kildare a week later. Suffice to say, the football Dubs are perennial box office; the hurlers are only getting there.

But Humphrey Kelleher -- a member of the review group, and subsequently Dublin senior manager for a fallow period before Tommy Naughton took the reins -- insists that hurling is getting closer to parity of esteem with the footballers.

"There has been a huge upsurge in hurling interest," says Kelleher, highlighting the growing number of young metropolitans spotted with hurls in their hands and the example of clubs where football used to be king but hurling now enjoys almost equal status. "We are not there yet, but it's not as aspirational as we may have felt in 2001."

He expands: "You have to remember this was written in an era when hurling in Dublin was at a low ebb, and therefore we had to put some structures in place.

"I have read where this report was much maligned over the years and thrown in with other reports or blueprints that are gaining dust on the shelf -- people were giving commentaries like that. I genuinely believe that this was a little bit different. I thought it was rather practical."

But what about Dublin being an All-Ireland winning hurling county by 2008?

Clearly this hasn't happened in any inter-county grade, but Kelleher maintains that the target was reached -- by the Dublin Colleges who were crowned All-Ireland senior 'A' champions in 2006. At county level, the U21s have come closest, reaching the 2008 All-Ireland final where they were buried in a five-goal Galway avalanche.

THE OUTSIDE VIEW

The very first key proposal outlined in the blueprint was the appointment of a full-time director of hurling. The role was duly filled in 2003 by Diarmuid Healy, a Kilkenny man with a formidable track record in the area of fomenting hurling revolution.

The coach who inspired Offaly to their breakthrough All-Ireland success in 1981 only spent a year as Dublin hurling overlord -- "commuting was a huge problem," he now explains -- but he saw enough to suggest a committed desire for change.

"The conclusion I came to was that there was an enormous amount of work being done for Dublin hurling. The change I wanted them to make was to go more from the physical training to the skills training," Healy recounts.

"They have done that in the last number of years, and they are reaping the rewards now. I saw Dublin play Kilkenny in the league in Nowlan Park -- Dublin played fantastic hurling that day. They are now in an All-Ireland quarter-final, and the message I would have for Dublin at this stage is they have made huge progress and they are deservedly in a quarter-final -- and they can even get better."

So, what's needed to make the next step? "They will have to have a fanatical belief in themselves," he expands. That means being "totally convinced" of their own merit to mix it with the best.

Healy cites this year's Leinster semi-final where, after two close shaves in '07 and '08, Dublin finally overcame Wexford. But even here, they were patently the better team yet only limped home with two points to spare.

"Dublin coming up to that match probably didn't believe they were six or seven points better than Wexford, and hence they struggled over the line. But if they can add that belief to the skill level they have, they will take beating," he predicts.

Healy doesn't subscribe to talk of supplanting the Dublin footballers, but says the hurlers, "can win an All-Ireland senior. They have now established themselves as the second team in Leinster (he excludes Galway from this equation) and if you said that six or seven years ago, people would laugh at you. There is a solid foundation there and they are making very good progress. And they have the right man in charge with Anthony Daly."

MEASURING SUCCESS

According to the 2001 blueprint, Dublin hurling will have succeeded when:

3 Our sporting competitors regard us as the leader.

3 The professionalism of our management and the quality of our coaches is envied and emulated.

3 Dublin hurling teams are consistently among the top six teams in Ireland.

3 All Dublin clubs totally support a true hurling culture.

So, by those yardsticks, have the Sky Blue stickmen delivered?

On the question of sporting competitors, it's obvious that Dublin hurling is not yet the market leader. Kelleher, who now acts as 'Friends of Dublin Hurling' secretary, has always contended that "the biggest opposition to hurling in Dublin is not Gaelic football, it's rugby".

He believes rugby in the capital is supremely organised, and the international success enjoyed by Ireland and Leinster this year poses another obvious challenge for the capital's small ball evangelists.

On the subject of quality coaching, Kelleher says: "We are certainly going a long way to that with the GPOs (Games Promotion Officers). When we started off in the late '90s/early 2000s, people were in there for their names rather than ability to coach, and now we've found you have to have a certain amount of coaching instruction, and do your level-one coaching, before you're allowed to teach kids."

As for Dublin becoming a consistent top-six team?

The Dublin U21s could certainly claim such exalted status, even after narrowly losing last week's Leinster final to Kilkenny. Now the seniors have finally arrived as just one of six counties still in the race for Liam MacCarthy.

Cue a cautionary note from Kelleher: "That doesn't mean they are a top-six team. That has to be sustained and confirmed over a period of time. One swallow doesn't make a summer. We have to keep that going and I think there is quality at underage coming through, albeit the minors didn't prove it this year."

Finally, are Dublin clubs now advocating a true hurling culture? According to one inside observer of the Dublin scene there has been a "huge mindset change" in some clubs, but not all. This is reflected in the case studies of St Pat's Palmerstown, who are now able to produce a player of Liam Rushe's calibre; and Na Fianna and Lucan Sarsfields, traditional football bastions where hurling has developed to a point where both clubs are competing at senior level.

Other key proposals in the blueprint have been achieved, with the director of hurling role vacated but now essentially performed by Damien Byrne (as Adult Hurling Development Manager) and Colm Burtchaell (as Hurling Development Officer).

Divisional playing structures have been introduced to varying extents at club level (where regional teams now participate in the Dublin SHC) and at inter-county level (where Fingal compete in the Nicky Rackard Cup and Division 3B of the National League).

Another proposal -- for a dedicated hurling centre incorporating an academy of excellence -- has still not become reality, although the county board's proposed centre of excellence at Rathcoole will embrace both codes while there are also plans for a hurling-only centre of excellence in Clontarf. Hurling walls have sprung up at several clubs, another positive and practical development.

AND NOW FOR THE TOP-FOUR?

Dublin seniors are now among this year's top-six, but can they make it to the last-four?

Humphrey Kelleher is cautiously optimistic, believing they have a great chance on Sunday if they can stifle Seamus Hickey's influence from half-back and contain chief forward threat Andrew O'Shaughnessy.

Diarmuid Healy has a different take, albeit equally positive. "They have the potential to beat Limerick, but every single one of them has to believe that 100pc -- and if they can do that, they will beat Limerick," he concludes.

- Frank Roche

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Bord na Mona man
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Re: Dubs deliver on blueprint

Post by Bord na Mona man »

I thought the article was interesting.

I was at the Dublin county convention in 2001 when this blueprint was launched.
I remember Michael O'Grady took the microphone and laid it out starkly about the state of Dublin hurling.
He said it on the road to becoming extinct and badly needed rescuing.

His voice was shaking with a mixture of exasperation and passion.
He urged delegates to take stock of the report and not dismiss it. And if they didn't agree with aspects of it, to at least come up with some alternatives.

While Dublin hurling mightn't have hit all the targets (some of them were optimistic) at least there is a sense of direction as to where they are going.
I wonder how does any Offaly hurling strategy hold up in comparison?

If there was a blueprint for Offaly hurling for the next 10 years, what should the targets be?

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Bord na Mona man
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Re: Dubs deliver on blueprint

Post by Bord na Mona man »

Time flies and Offaly and Dublin are both moving in the same direction as they were 5 years ago.

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