The county board dont pay a penny.AFAIK
I donât know anything about specifically about visits to Arsenal; my understanding is that was at the outset when they were originally formalising the structures. Itâs what you do, isnât it, you go and look at what the top structures elsewhere look like.
Obviously we couldnât implement anything like what Arsenal have, but if they learned one or two things, then it was a worthwhile exercise.
I imagine the structures themselves arenât that dissimilar to what other counties have, people say that the set times for the 14s, 15s, 16s; all training on the one morning after each other gives a feeling of cohesion.
The clubs nominate players, particularly at 14s level, for trials and the GDOs for the four divisions would have a bit of an input but the managers at whatever level are given massive amounts of autonomy. Which is good; but if you pick a bad manager or coach (which has happened), then you will suffer the consequences.
But because you have Browney in charge of the academy, heâs kind of keeping an eye on everything, heâll take sessions at every age group from time to time. They arrange talks and sessions for the coaches too, to try and improve them. The focus is on just general hurling skills, trying to make them as rounded as possible at the younger ages.
And thereâs an S&C head for the academy too and he oversees all that, so there isnât different people doing different things. Most of this is about education for the players and the parents too. Theyâre introduced to that kind of work slowly, there are nutrition talks for players & parents.
At the end of the day, you can only provide the tools, itâs up to players at the end of the day too. A lot of players donât fully buy-in, some do and just never make it. The hope is that, at the very least, you make it an enjoyable experience and they become good club players at the very least. And obviously players develop at different rates.
Like, my understanding is that Galway tend to be well ahead of Limerick at 14s, 15s level. So perseverance and keeping as many players involved and trying to get continual improvement is key, that part is on the coaches too.
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I think this is very important,not everyone will develop into a Hayes Morrissey or a Hannon but these young lads should come back better players which will benefit the clubs at least and a strong club championship should make a strong county team.
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Explaining good practice on s&c, nutrition and basic sports psychology to player and parents.
Giving them into and tools to do that.
Ensuring consistent good practice on hurling coaching, s&c and player management
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Thatâs a very good summation of my overlong spiel 
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Thanks, as you mention other counties, ie galway are also doing similar, though later to the party than limerick. But thatâs excellent structures in place and a bit of a sea change from where limerick were, relying on the odd fully developed hurler to cover over the cracks of a Damien Quigley or Donnie Ryan.
The real mystery is how they retained and indeed developed this senior team, but the it is just an exceptional group, buoyed by revealing intense drills and maybe Caroline currid.
Itâs really just a perfect storm of generational players being born mainly between 1994 and 1997
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But so many, itâs not just a happy coincidence.
Key point. Ultimately this comes down to a few leaders who decide they want to get to a better standard and they bring the rest along with them. Obviously you need to provide the environment for them to build this culture but you need a few leaders in there to drive it.
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The ounce of breeding helps also, Quaid, Nash, Lynch, Hegarty, Hannon with his Stakelum ancestry
I think these things are generally coincidences. After Kyle Hayesâ age thereâs a big drop off. Did Limerick just have unreal structures for 3 years and then come back to the pack? Doubt it
This is embarrassing but I never realised til now Gearoid was Gers son.
A generation forged out of bitterness over Wexford cheating them out of that all Ireland. They should engineer playing Wexford next year and beat them by 96 points. Limerick might need to request a move to leinster for that to happen.
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Limerick have best manager. Best coach. Best sports psychologist. Best S&C. Best infrastructures.
But most importantly ye have the best players. Without them, none of the above would matter a bit.
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I think they are interdependent. All the talent, without the above, wont bring you success at elite level.
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I think there are a number of factors there, that just happened to come together at the right time.
A hugely-talented group of players, backboned by the 2013 & 2014 minors, two of the best groups we ever had. Iâd give Cregan & Jerry Wallis a lot of credit in that regard, they were their main coaches up along. And they had fellas who were stars even at underage- Cian Lynch, Barry Nash, Tom Morrissey, Sean Finn all born in 1996. Aaron Gillane too, but heâs slightly different in that he was a B team player up along and couldnât get near the 2014 minor starting team. Also have to credit the clubs involved, the likes of Patrickswell & Na Piarsaigh played a big part in the development of their players. Arguably, losing the 2013 & 2014 minor actually helped a lot.
So you have a load of talented players coming through, buoyed by U-21 success in 2015 & 2017. You have a decent core of older players on the senior panel, Munster winners in 2013 & All Ireland semi-finalists in 2014. However, we had two atrocious years in 2015 & 2016. This meant that, although there were some good hurlers there, there were no real complaints with Kiely introducing huge swathes of young players to add into the mix alongside Hannon, Dowling, Quaid, Mul, Gavin, Condon, Richie Mac, Browne, Jim-Bob, Hickey, Dan Morrissey etc. Something like 18 of the U-21 panel from 2017 were on the senior panel in 2018.
You also have probably the best coach ever in hurling in Kinnerk. He was with Clare, but parted ways, was from Limerick, was always likely that he would come in at some point but the timing was just perfect with both groups.
You then have Seanie OâDonnell, the best analyst in the country, freed up from Cork around the same time. You have Caroline Currid brought in to hone in on the mentality side. You add in other good coaches like Jimmy Quilty, Alan Cunningham and Joe OâConnor on S&C (who was also with Clare in 2013 but is from Limerick) and then you have Kiely holding it all together.
And once you get that bit of success, the players themselves set incredible standards for each other. Youâre a lot less likely to lose players when you expect to be successful. Bar Dowlingâs injury & Paddy OâLoughlin, we havenât really lost any players who have started in Championship before their time.
Will it last forever? It definitely wonât obviously. Arguably, thereâs too much read into the success of the âacademyâ when it really is just one crop of truly brilliant players. Which the underage structures definitely, definitely did play a part in. But can they repeat it?
I would argue that the 2019 minors were not too far off those 2013/2014 levels. However, the situation now is very different to 2017, itâs so much harder to break into the team. So while those fellas are on the panel, itâs just going to be very difficult for them to break in because now they have to displace players who have won 5 All-Irelands. But still- Quilty, Keane, FOC, Hurley, Coughlan, CON, AOC, young Hego, English, POD; thatâs another crop of seriously, seriously talented players. Some of them will never make it- a couple of them have got a number of serious injuries and havenât played much since minor.
And weâve had bad years at minor since too. Winning trophies isnât the be-all and end all at underage though, it is just about producing the players that can potentially compete at the highest level. Had another good crop this year although maybe didnât have any superstars (which maybe is what you need at senior level). But there have been bad years too and my concern is that we take our eye off the ball any bit, or stop trying to innovate. Or âjobs for the boysâ becomes an issue (people would argue that happened at the peak of the academy too). Or that when Kinnerk goes, we just lose our way. All dangers, especially as other counties get their act together.
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He has lived in Clare for the majority of his life, why would you assume this?
Cregan batted very hard for gillane to be kept involved at 21 level I believe.
He could easily have been lost.
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Because he played club in Limerick, surrounded by Limerick people, played county for Limerick, drinks in Limerick; these are ties that are created over years, he has an obvious passion for it, he would always come home eventually.
Did get a bit of luck with the perfect timing.
Hegarty and gillane could easily have been lost. Hegarty was brought in from no where during his last year under 21.
We still have gotten a lot of luck despite doing most things right for the last few years.
He was employed in Clare, got his coaching start with Clare and won it all with Clare. Hand him over the keys to the development squads in 2014 and he is still in the same spot. The ball was dropped here