Wexford get full time coaches and a plan. What do we get?

[manfromdelmonte]

Coaching to be tackled on a regional basis
by Ronan Fagan

COUNTY WEXFORD is to be carved into three regions as part of the GAA’s five-year Coaching Development Plan for the county.

The South area, incorporating Wexford town, numbers 19 clubs, plus five Secondary Schools and 31 Primary Schools.

Mid-Wexford, including Enniscorthy and New Ross, features 16 clubs, five Secondary schools and 28 Primary Schools.

And the North, with such centres as Gorey, Bunclody and Ferns, has 15 clubs, 5 Secondary Schools and 32 Primary Schools.

Among the principal aspects of the coaching plan will be the employment of seven full-time as well as five seasonal coaches. Four of the permanent tutors will be coaching both Gaelic football and hurling, while the other three will dedicate their energies to the small-ball game.

Ultimately one dual coach together with a hurling coach will be assigned to each region, with the remainder of the coaching staff being deployed between the three areas. “We have drafted a detailed plan, with key goals and objectives for the development of coaching from now through to 2012,” County Chairman, Ger Doyle explains.

“For example, for the Primary Schools, we want three football and three hurling blitz competitions for under-8 to under-10 age groups for seven, eight and nine-a-side teams, at the end of which we would hope to have 95% participation throughout the county by the time this plan reaches its fifth year.

“In Secondary Schools, the goal is to choose under-13/14 teams with an emphasis on players from ‘weaker’ hurling and football clubs, leading to five football and five hurling blitzes across the county, with the selection of county representative blitz teams by 2010.”

Additional features of the plan include the establishment of urban based multicultural GAA fun activity camps, during the Easter and Halloween holiday periods. The Chairman is eager to pilot these particular programmes this year, with a view towards staging such camps in the county’s six towns from 2009 onwards, with the Oulart-The Ballagh clubman pointing out that “the towns need a lot of attention”, with clear reference to the little real senior championship success enjoyed by urban teams in the modern era.

Wexford GAA is determined to leave absolutely nothing to chance in their efforts to cater for all requirements under the coaching plan. Indeed, Mick Kinsella, the new County Coaching Development Officer, is set to review similar programmes in counties such as Galway, Tipperary and Dublin over the coming weeks, “to help make sure that we are using the best practice, and to see if any of those counties encountered any pitfalls so as we can avoid similar problems”, Doyle adds.

[the bare biffo]

Theres a similar push being made on the coaching front in Roscommon also. I have volunteered to help out with the juveniles in the local club this year and last week attended the fisrt part of the foundation level coaching course. Roscommon too have divided the county into regions and there were 50 people in attendance at the course representing the clubs in the northern end of the county. The club has also been pushed by the county board into forming a minor board within the club in order to develop proper structures to go along with the coaching work in order to develop the games at underage level. As well the coaching course we also have first aid training for all people involved with teams with a focus on sports injuries and an indoor circuit training sessions again for anyone involved in training teams. It's all very positive stuff and is being pushed down the line from Croke Park through the county boards. Theres a "fun do" dvd with video clips from high profile games, individual "elite " players and kids, illustrating the skills and the drills you can use to practice them. Theres even a facility on the dvd to allow a coach to put together a full session using a recommended structure. All very scientific stuff.

[Bord na Mona man]

It was only a matter of time that Wexford got their act together.
Their underage structure was appalling for years.
I heard how a couple of years ago, a minor club hurler would have played his first match in JULY(!!!). This is after the county panel would have been picked, trained and been knocked out.

This leaves Offaly potentially further behind in Leinster now. We had a certain luxury in Wexford being worse organised than ourselves and this leveled the playing field a little. A county with nearly twice the population and now with some sort of proper organisation will probably get the better of us consistently.

A county like Offaly with our inherent disadvantages needs to be years ahead of the rest in organisation and underage coaching. Not belatedly following trends, years after other counties have pushed further ahead of us. It was infuriating that it took nearly a decade of watching other counties like Laois clean up at underage for us to finally embrace the notion of underage academies.

In hindsight, the worst thing that happened to Offaly hurling was winning the Leinster minor and U21 in 2000. For a couple of years up to then people were starting to realise that we were in big trouble at underage. Winning these titles gave the false sense that things would be alright with the status quo that existed. That a good senior team automatically meant that the underage took care of itself. Surgery on our structures was delayed and our rivals continued to widen the gap.

[uibhfhaili]

As Ive outlined with my old user name Dingle before, we can pat ourselves on the back and tell each other what a great little county we were. The fact of the matter is Offaly will have not future success until we put in place the best underage development structures in the Country. As it stands Offally deserve fcuk all success because of neglect and sloth when it comes to putting in the hard work thats taken for granted in successful counties.