GAA coaches busy behind the scenes
ALTHOUGH, for now, the playing fields around the county remain quiet, underage footballers and hurlers continue to hone their skills at home in anticipation of a return to regular competition.
The break from competitive action allows players time and space to work on various aspects of their game, and they have been aided by Sligo GAA’s coaching team in terms of challenges, advice and engagement.
There remains no definitive date for a resumption of team activity, but reports emerging last week suggest that the GAA harbours hopes of running the hugely popular Cúl Camps later in the summer.
“It’s been busy. We’ve a serious amount of work done in the last five or six weeks with a lot of the paper work type of stuff that will help coaches and help clubs over the next couple of years.” Liam Óg said.
“Some of the projects that we’ve done from a Connacht point of view, and everyone has been involved in it, if a club wants to put a coaching manual together, we’ve 80pc of the work done for them so we’ve a whole document there ready to go on a coaching manual if a club wants to put a coaching manual into place.
“Louise [Keane] has been working with Seamus Burns and they’re putting together a whole new Award 2 for the strength and conditioning, so there’s a whole course there. Aran [McGowan] has been helping an awful lot with skills videos and little diagrams and stuff.
“Ross [Donovan] over the last couple of weeks has been working with Leinster and Connacht on revamping the whole foundation and award one material so the material in the course with be revamped and modernised and bring it up to spec on that side.
“Stephen [Henry] was involved with myself on the coaching manuals so we were involved in that project, Pat [Kilcoyne] is helping with looking at the secondary school sector and how we can best help teachers and if there is anything we can do to help on that side of things.
“He was also involved in doing up the new skills programme for clubs, the Connacht skills programme.
“Darragh [Cox] has been very busy doing coach education podcasts, he has done great work on that and he has also been helping Thomas Keenan [Leitrim] on the club school link and how to look at that side of things.”
The extent of the work the coaching team has gotten through so far has been extensive, and has covered all age groups
The engagement has been good, the coaches around the county have been absolutely fantastic.
in all clubs.
The time away from on-the-field coaching has, as Liam Óg says, allowed for extra work in terms of planning for the future, while they have also been keen to emphasise the importance of players working on all aspects of their game - especially the areas in which they would like to improve.
“Within the county itself we’ve looked at a whole load of projects as well from our Pella programme to our skills programme in our primary schools, we’ve also looked at our under 13 and 14 regional programmes, how best to run them and get people involved in them as well so a lot of work done.
“And from week to week we’ve been doing a lot on skills with the clubs, what we did was we gave a coach to each of the different age groups.
“We’ve been very focussed from the point of view that everything we do, we try and do it that it’s bilateral and that it’s on both sides and we’re really trying to get kids to spend time to develop both sides and develop their game and really look at the areas that need improvement at this moment in time that mightn’t be as strong as they want it to be, and to really focus in on that.”
Of course, the coaches can only do so much; the onus of actually doing the work falls on the shoulders of the players themselves.
Liam Óg says the level of participation has been very satisfactory, and there are plans to include an element of the collective into the skills work in the coming weeks.
“The engagement has been good, the coaches around the county have been absolutely fantastic.
“We’ve had engagement with the majority of coaches in the clubs, the engagement at the different age groups has been really good, we’ve a new project starting for the month of June which will hopefully bring a team feel to it, we’re running a team skills league.”
“We have 18 teams on board, between 12 and 20 players in each of the different teams, and what we will do is set a skills challenge each Monday, the kids have until Thursday to practice it and they’ve got to send their 30 second video of the skills challenge into the coach and the coach then sends on five representatives each week.
“They have to be different each week to represent their clubs.
“We’ll have four different leagues - two of four teams and two of five teams and they’ll compete against each other in the league each week.
“We’re trying to get back into that team element again that they’re representing their club and representing their team. We’re looking forward to seeing how that goes, looking forward to seeing the engagement wit it.
“Overall, I think the players have been really good, from an academy point of view the players have been really, really engaged and the coaches are doing a lot of skills work and the club sides of things has been very engaged as well.
“The county board kindly sponsored 15 jerseys so over the last five weeks we’ve had challenges each week for different jerseys to be won so I think for one of the U12 videos we had 80 in which was great.
“We feel we’ve got a great response here in Sligo.”
Many of the players practising their skills at home under the age of 13 will be wondering whether they will get the chance to put them into practice at the Cúl Camps this summer.
They have become a key part of the summer for children all over the country, with record numbers attending in recent years.
However, a final decision has yet to be taken by organisers at national level on whether they will proceed this year.
“Really and truly we don’t know,” Liam Óg says of whether they will happen.
“At this moment in time, you’re really seeing how the social distancing and the whole thing pans out.
“It’s like anything, and like a lot of things, they’re looking at plans for Cúl Camps based on medical guidance and seeing if there is a safe way for them to take place.
“There is a certain feeling out there at the moment that kids need something. I’m just after putting a survey out to all the youth players in Sligo and I’ve got nearly 70 responses from it and all they’re wondering is whether they’re going to get back to play.
“That’s the big underlying feeling, when are we getting back to play?
“There is a big worry and you always have the worry about the health side of things. But kids are kids and they are just wondering when they will get back out to play.
“Nationally, Croke Park are looking at plans for Cúl Camps based on medical guidance and seeing if there is a safe way for them to take place.
“But at this moment in time you’re just playing a waiting game,” he added.