New tournament to help develop hurlers
WICKLOW GAA’s hurling GDA Jonathan Tallon unveiled his new proposal for the improvement of underage hurling at the recent County Board meeting in Ballinakill.
After walk-overs by the Wicklow Celtic Challenge team this year, Tallon has created a new tournament to give young under-17 hurlers meaningful games in the months of October and November.
To do this he has created the Wicklow Under-17 Regional Championship which will see six teams in all compete.
There will be North (Enniskerry, Kilmacanogue, Éire Óg Greystones, and Newtown), East (St Pat’s, Glenealy, Barndarrig, and Avondale), South (Carnew, Shillelagh, Tinahely, Aughrim, Annacurra, and Arklow Rock Parnells), West (Baltinglass, Kiltegan, Stratford-Grangecon, DonardThe Glen, Dunlavin, Valleymount, Lacken, Blessington Kilbride), Bray Emmets, who will fly their own flag in this championship and these five teams will be joined by Wexford’s Tara Rocks.
“Basically, it’s an under-17 regional tournament for the hurlers. Bray have decided to go on their own so we will have North, South, East and West and Bray will be the fifth team,” Jonathan Tallon told the County Board meeting.
“Because of that, going on a tournament basis, I didn’t a team to have a bye so what I’ve done is I’ve invited Tara Rocks from Gorey into it as well so we’ve six teams and it will be run off over six weeks.
“The idea behind it is, is that the regions will have two home games, two away games and then two games in Ballinakill. The games against Tara Rocks will be in Ballinakill and the final will be as well,” said Tallon.
As part of the new plan each region will have one training session every week with Jonathan Tallon.
“I will be doing the (training) sessions myself in each of the regions, so four nights of the week I’ll go out to the four regions, or five nights to the five regions. I’ll be doing the workshops in each region, so the first week with the north/south/east/west it will all be one training session with the lads and inviting the coaches from all of the clubs in to watch the workshop rather than have the whole county trying to get down to here (Ballinakill) once a month.
“So, from a coach education point of view we’ll be getting more coaches out, hopefully, right at the back door.
“The kids ae going to be getting a good standard of hurling and the best part of it, I think, is that before Christmas I’ll have a chance to go around and see everyone at that age so that when it comes to after Christmas and we’re selecting for the Celtic Challenge team I’ll know who is each region.
“I’ve spoken to all the mentors and they’re all on board with it,” he added.
Tallon added that this tournament applied to anyone who is under 17 or under 16 years of age and he said that I didn’t just apply to young lads who are already hurling, he said that if young lads who have never hurled wanted to give it a go then they were more than welcome.
“The under-17 championship will be finished up in a few weeks’ time.
“This is due to start on October 23 and then every Monday night for six weeks so once the club (championship) is done and out of the way this will bring them up to the finals on November 27 and the finals will be here in ‘A’, ‘B’, and ‘C’.
“Then they will break for Christmas and then they will be selected (for the Celtic Challenge) so we are putting a bit of value on the Wicklow jersey.
“So, it won’t be a case of us ringing and looking for lads, it will be us selecting you to come and show us what you can do for the county.
“And look, it’s a trial. It might work. It might not work. And if it doesn’t work I’ll put my hands up and say it didn’t work. But it’s something different. We might as well try it. And if it does work then we could go with the same idea for the under-13s and under-15s,” he added.
The first game for the teams will be on October 23 and there will be games on October 30, November 6, November 13, November 20, and the finals will be on November 27.
Wicklow GAA’s hurling officer Sean Hayes told the meeting that the reason the tournament was starting early was that the Celtic Challenge was taking place earlier in 2018.
He said that he hoped the idea by Jonathan Tallon could be filtered down to the young age groups.
Wicklow GAA Chairman Martin Coleman said that there were good hurlers in every region and he urged everyone involved in clubs and in hurling in the county to get behind the initiative and support the tournament.