Youth Policy or Rotation Policy

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jimmyeatworld
Junior B
Posts: 11
Joined: Wed Mar 19, 2008 4:07 pm

Youth Policy or Rotation Policy

Post by jimmyeatworld »

It has been mentioned alot over the past few months about how Joe Dooley has introduced a youth policy within the hurling set up and hopes to progress things over the next few years.

I remember well how only 4 years ago John McIntyre was brought in as manager and he opened his reign with the same developmental policy. I don't know how many players McIntyre used over the course of his three years but I feel his policy was far from a youth one. Year on year, he included new players, brought back older players , dropped players only to call them back in within weeks of the championship - I don't want to be bringing up too many bad memories of previous management but after three years McIntyre had achieved nothing with Offaly and his declared youth policy did not develop any raw U21 players into consistent senior players.
My point is this - In most cases, it is not beneficial for a county to have up to ten U21's on a senior squad. Now we can be overly optimistic and say how with a few years experience these players can become good seniors. The general trend has been for past managers to give youth its fling (do well and your a great manager, do badly, ah sur they were only young lads), do worse than exepceted, come under pressure form county boards/supporters, lose faith in alot of these inexperienced players, drop these players off the panel for the following, bring in the next crop of "extremely talented U21's" and promote the youth policy process again. I see the last 5 years of Offaly hurling as more of a cycle than a development process.

There are inexperienced players who can hold their own against KK on Sunday, Horan and Rigney namely. There are some players who will not be able to do this on Sunday but with the right mangement, preparation and coaching will develop into players who can hold their own in the future. For the sake of Offaly hurling I hope Dooley is the man to do this.

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