If you plan it... change will come
IWATCHED the debate on the future of hurling with interest last weekend on Allianz League Sunday. I was meant to be part of the panel but unfortunately my back gave in – the wear and tear of my own playing days is still catching up! Liam Sheedy was part of the panel and I was on the Hurling 2020 committee headed up by him and that produced its own proposals.
Louth captain Peter Fortune spoke well about the whole sustainability of the game outside counties where it is traditionally strong and it got me thinking about the challenge in a dual county such as Offaly, trying to serve both hurling and Gaelic football equally.
To me, the key thing is sustainability. This week I was in Cloghan where three All-Ireland hurling captains for Offaly were honoured – Pádraig Horan (1981), Martin Hanamy (1994) and Hubert Rigney (1998). A Captain’s Wall was unveiled at the local service station for the three St Rynagh’s legends and I was delighted to be there to support clubmen I admired and shared a field with.
The conversation came back to the same thing: how do we recruit more people into the club? Into any club?
Go back to Louth and Peter Fortune’s case, a situation that was highlighted with the controversial proposal to deny five counties from National League competition from 2025, Louth amongst them. Due to a lack of clubs.
Say we are going to put three more new clubs in, who is going to do the work? You can bring in outside coaches, provide money, but people on the ground have to be there to run it. To try and pass a love of the game onto the next generation and make the whole thing sustainable. That’s what I looked at when I came in as Offaly chair, putting a proper strategic plan together.
When I was elected in December 2019, Offaly GAA wasn’t in a good place. Our senior hurling team was in the Christy Ring Cup and relegated in the League. Our football team had one championship win in a decade. Our schools had fallen off the pace.
The financial position was also grim. In October 2019, we had 600 quid in the bank, limited sponsorship and plenty of financial constraints. We had volunteers facing this relentless pressure of paying bills – just look at the €40million cost in intercounty preparations.
So we engaged with clubs, the general population and in different forums. We did a lot of online work, got in a lot of data and formulated a strategic plan on the back of that. With five main pillars:
1. Sustainable Club Coverage - to maximise participation
2. Vibrant Games Programme – at club, schools, all levels
3. High Performance Pathway – to provide a pathway for higher performers to excel at county level.
4. Financial Stability – for clubs and county board with robust governance procedures in place
5. Respected Brand – to be synonymous with success and excellence, on and off.
All of that with the express purpose of putting the player at the middle of it.
I’d like to think we have brought so much of that plan to fruition.
On the vibrant games programme, we had 150 or 160 games scheduled – now we now have over 1,000.
At schools level we had Coláiste Naomh Cormac winning the AllIreland B title last year, the Offaly Schools beating St Kieran’s in Leinster A, Banagher College winning the Leinster B, Coláiste Choilm in Leinster A football.
There is huge work going on with a year-round games programme with the Faithful Fields Centre of Excellence at the heart of it.
We had three full-time positions –we now have 13. We have an operations manager, county administrator, head of performance, head of coaching and games, head of nutrition, medical, S&C, and so on.
We are starting to drill deeper into the tactical and technical elements, sports psychology.
Covid did make it harder but we put five-year sponsorship deals in place. Brought in Glenisk. Got Shane Lowry involved. Have a much bigger list now of sponsors and backers.
And the Offaly brand is something to be proud of. Just look at the Under-20 hurling final – bringing 15 to 20,000 people to an underage game is nearly unheard of.
One area of concern is in relation to clubs. We have 17 clubs in Offaly who have linked up as independent teams – where clubs can’t field on their own. Have to look for permission to field with someone else.
We have looked for them to go out on their own. I think we set up 27 new nurseries in the last few years and we want them to go and field an underage team on their own.
There is fear though in setting up a club with all the governance, Garda vetting, child safeguarding and so on that is involved. The biggest thing is getting people to run it on the ground. We asked every one of them would they field a team on their own in Go Games. Not one came back.
Last week a document came back on the number of active clubs. In football, we were the third lowest in the country with only 124 individual teams – only Fermanagh and Kilkenny were behind us.
We saw the Louth captain on, talking about the challenges for hurling there, but that’s to highlight the challenges for a traditionally strong dual county like Offaly.
So there’s a myriad of problems. We recognise this. We have a meeting of all the underage clubs. Trying to drive this. Asking them to start hurling in football clubs – and vice versa. It’s not easy.
Now there was talk of the split season on the League Sunday debate. It’s worth remembering we originally had a club month in April – which wasn’t adhered to. Because county managers had too much say! In a lot of counties, club and county, there probably isn’t a huge desire to change the status quo.
Trying to grow hurling then is difficult. There is no plan.
When you don’t replace the Martin Fogartys of this world, and just throw a new committee together, that’s not the best way. So there are certainly ways of improving things.
The aim should be to have another five or six counties competing at the very top – maybe put the investment there. Look after the next tier first.
But the bottom line is that a proper strategic plan is needed. We’ve seen in Offaly how important that can be.