Interview with Sean Lowry

[RhodeRunner]

Minors are getting worse.

Maybe where your from, but i have to say where i'm from there the best bunch of lads i've every came across. A credit to their family's, village and parish. No a bad bone in 1 of them

[offalyman08]

its easy to follow a winning team. I dont remember to many people following your minors last year when they finished bottom of there group, or the year before when they failed to qualify out of the group either.
Also this year when the u16's failed to field a team against Edenderry there was not ONE single supporter that showed up for the match.

[Bord na Mona man]

Just look to our neighbours in westmeath. Rochfortbridge minor manager quit this week after some of his players egged his house?

Well there's always a few bad eggs!
I wonder what is the background though.

Is it possible that underage managers around the country spend too much energy trying to hector talented but uninterested players into playing?
The end result being peed off committed players who get dropped, or else slackers growing tied of being leaned on to train and play.

It has turned into win at all costs nowadays.
In Lowry and Foran's day, you learned the skills by playing and enjoying the game with your friends.
They never had to egg any manager's house, because the underage was less competitive.

[RhodeRunner]

its easy to follow a winning team. I dont remember to many people following your minors last year when they finished bottom of there group, or the year before when they failed to qualify out of the group either.
Also this year when the u16's failed to field a team against Edenderry there was not ONE single supporter that showed up for the match.

I was referring to their personal behavior I wasn't talking about their football skills. You said

Agree with club 125.. Minors are getting worse. Just look to our neighbours in westmeath. Rochfortbridge minor manager quit this week after some of his players egged his house?

clearly stating that all minors are getting worse. I was saying not where I come from. Not sure why the outburst on Rhode minors last year or the under16's this year. You must have a bee in your bonnet there pat concerning Rhode. Few deep breaths should sort you out.

[TheManFromFerbane]

It was said earlier that this has been going on for generations. Auld lads giving out about "kids these days" etc... I think theres two important things to remember. First, we are dealing with kids, 16-18 year olds are cocky, know-it-alls who are convinced you know nothing. Just like they were 100 years ago I'd imagine. Second, as already pointed out, theres way more distractions now adays. Technology, other sports, a more relaxed attitude to teenagers social scene. These are extra challenges that didn't exist before and we as GAA people have to do better at making our sport more attractive for that age group.

The end goal should always be to keep them engaged with the games, make it as enjoyable as possible for them and yes, chase one or two of them if you have to. If you can hold them past minor, maybe U21, then you'll have another group of people to pass the torch on, which at the end of the day is all we're trying to do. You'll lose some anyway, as I already said theres no doubt about that and to be honest you couldn't really handle it if ever minor team gave you ten lads to work with.

But from our point of view, you're not going to achieve the above by beating them down every chance you get, telling them they're this and they're that. They don't owe us anything and we don't owe them anything. We're all involved in this because we love the GAA and part of our role as GAA members is to encourage the kids as much as possible to stay involved.

[offalyman08]

im not tryin to rise an arguement but honestly what player on the current offaly panel is good enough? Ok everyone knows richie's wasnt good enough but still does that justify what was done to him??? for me it doesnt.
p.s i have no problem with rhode at all

[Lone Shark]

im not tryin to rise an arguement but honestly what player on the current offaly panel is good enough? Ok everyone knows richie's wasnt good enough but still does that justify what was done to him??? for me it doesnt.

On the one hand Richie Connor is a former great of the game and deserves respect, but equally the current players, though they haven't put anything like the same level of achievement on their cv's, deserve the chance to do the best that they can. Now unless there is a current player on this board willing to contribute, and I very much doubt that this is the case, then all anybody knows is hearsay and secondhand stuff.

Richie's record as a player, let's not forget, is of no help when it comes to preparing a team for the demands of the modern game. Of course it entitles him to a shot, but we all know that the truth is somewhat of a grey area here.

Let's take two extremes - say point 1, where the players are treated like proper athletes, with the most innovative training techniques, support structures to assist in personal preparation and a range of expertise to develop all different aspects of their game. In this instance, the players would have been 100% out of order.

Now we have point 2 - a neanderthal system where there's feck all other than running laps, no tactical discussion, no personal development, and a disinterested management team there to pick up the money who spend most of the training sessions on the phone discussing personal matters. In this instance, the players would be completely right to respond like they did.

Let's assume for a minute that the truth lies somewhere between these two extremes - which is probably not unreasonable. Is there not then a theoretical line in the sand where the players would have been more sinned against than sinning, somewhere in the grey area? I would venture that there is, and that unless we know where the line is, it's dangerous to say that the players were in the right or in the wrong.

[offalyman08]

What do you make of the interviews in general LS??
Are they a good or bad idea?

[Georgio1]

Freedom of seech is always a good thing, however, of the older guys interviewed, the most balanced has been Padraig Dunne.
His atitude is things are bad, but lets do something about it. Very relevant point made towards the interviews for the Richie appointment made earlier in this discussion. Lowry was there to ensure Richie got it, and these guys are living in the past, and grumpy with it!
To obsessed with reliving the '82 achievement, if half the funds spent on past teams were available for the young players we would be moving in the right direction.

[Lone Shark]

What do you make of the interviews in general LS??
Are they a good or bad idea?

Definitely good content, great to have them. In particular, the fact that the interviews are posted up verbatim is very good because it means that there's basically no interpretation - you get exactly what the person said, you have the context, the whole lot. I think there is a lot to be said for that style.

Definitely I think the interviews are great. If I was to make a couple of suggestions, it would be nice to have a link in your sidebar to go straight to all the different interviews, rather than having to siphon through the news. Also, what ye haven't covered yet would be someone in the club who has put a lot of work into keeping the hurling going. I can't speak for everyone but I know that I'd be very interested to hear what it's like trying to keep hurling going in a club like that, and more importantly, what people would like to see happening to push it on to the next step. Brosna Gaels have proved that you don't necessarily need the infrastructure in place to make great progress, and a commuter town like Edenderry must have plenty of people of hurling stock living in the area.

But as I said, that's just me - as things stand, they make for very good reading.

[Bord na Mona man]

The interviews are great work btw. Very informative and not watered down.

One suggestion that might be a bit of craic.
Give advance notice of which Offaly legend is going to be interviewed and get people here to post up questions they'd like them to be asked!
So long as posters play the ball and not the man with questions though.

[True Red]

If I was to make a couple of suggestions, it would be nice to have a link in your sidebar to go straight to all the different interviews, rather than having to siphon through the news.

They have already sorted out the issue above by having all the interviews plus the "Player Focus" questionaires in the download section of the website. This button is located on the sidebar for ease of use.

[turk]

The interviews are one of the best series of interviews I've seen on the internet in a long time. Truly superb

[Georgio1]

Turk, what is superb about them, go on, give us more than 1 line!

[beirut]

I see the Hoganstand have diversified and are now not just copying from The Star, they're now copying from the Edenderry Website...http://www.hoganstand.com/ArticleForm.aspx?ID=118709 Great Site and Great Interviews btw. Would be great to get some interviews from the hurling side of things.