Exactly this. Iām involved with two clubs on the northside - me own which Iām with since I was six and that has max. 120 members and the one where I live now that my kids are with. The first now has no access to a GPO - we previously shared but that didnāt work out - long story. Itās basically centered on a Corpo Estate and has always co-existed with soccer but now there are coaches, co-funded with Dublin City Council, from rugby and cricket working in the local schools in a structured way. Very much at the pointy end of the battle for attention the of (lone) parents and kids from a GAA perspective.
The other club is much larger, probably a couple of thousand members, and has a full-time GPO/GDA. His role seems to consist of sending TY students into the local primary schools. As these have no particular qualifications as much time seems to be spent on playing dodgeball or flicking mini beanbags to each other as opposed to coherent coaching.
His most important role is organising the CĆŗl camps as, with up to 300 kids a week attending, these are significant money raisers. In terms of coaching the coaches (largely parents with no GAA background) or moulding future Dubs to kick with both feet/strike off both sides thereās none of that. Next to no direct coaching that I have witnessed in fact but heās part of that ā¬17 million all the same.
Can anyone post up Joe brollys article today? Lambasting mayos ācelebrityā status again apparently. This despite the fact that almost the whole team are completely unknown and have zero media profile. Fairly obvious his entire target is aidan o shea. He has a genuinely creepy obsession with o shea at this stage.
I played on a hurling team that lost one match from u12 to u21ā¦that includes an all Ireland feileā¦we used to play the likes of Croabh,isles ,trinity Gaels and the odd time the Barrās ā¦everyone knew the result before a ball was puckedā¦the only leveller was playing them away if a certain ref from o tooles got the gig,it was a case of anything goesā¦the shit that used to go on ā¦one lad got fcuked out of his club because of what he did against us one day ā¦it went full circle at u21 when we played UCD ,the refs used to let us do whatever we wanted ā¦
Ha ha agree on the TY piece but it gives them a bit of responsibility to coach in future years maybe. The coach the coaches thing is utter bollox too. I am back straying again at nursery level and have mothers and fathers beside me who donāt know one end of a hurl or a football from another. Thereās a foundation and maybe a level 1 to be done but youāve to go out of your way to make sure you do and complete them. I think @Fagan_ODowd mentioned it but the proliferation of middle class parents now getting involved in all aspects of club is huge. When I started playing in Dublin it was mostly cos your parents were muldoons and you were prob the only kid on the road who played gaa. Now the opposite is true if you donāt play gaa on the road youāre the outlier.
Nah the great Kilkenny team was 2006-2009. Wexford were sometimes competitive outside of Leinster during those years but took some bad beatings against Kilkenny (Beat Tipp in 2007 quarter-final only to meet Kilkenny in the semiās, lost to Waterford by a point in 2008).
Kilkenny were definitely a great team in the pre-2006 period, they won three All-Irelands, they just werenāt as great as they were in 2006-2009.
People say Kilkennyās dominance from 2000 to 2015 was generational, but it wasnāt, they seamlessly brought through new players throughout the 2000s in the same way Dublin have. They had two starters from 2000 remaining by 2009, which is the same as Dublin have now from 2011.
Kilkenny were a fine side in the early 2000s as it was and then were able to add talent from the 2002 and 2003 all Ireland minor winning teams which had some excellent players and yielded the likes of Richie Power, Cha, Mick Rice and a host of other panellists.
Having a kid involved in The big Dublin gaa clubs is a boast akin to olden days of saying your kid playing on the rock junior cup team ā¦a lot of status attachedā¦
The players all work. Professional preparation is all about rest.
Dublin have done the structure better. Bryan Cullen is arguably their most important investment as he centralises their prep.Does he cost more than teams are paying their big name managers.
