Thatâs all grand, why will Cork be any different?
For all its faults Cork has a tradition of hurling and lads in clubs who have actually played the game are coaching. Makes a difference.
Plus the best ones choose hurling. Kingston is almost as talented a footballer.
What is your vested interest with Cork GAA, @TheUlteriorMotive?
Why do you seem to give a shit?
I deserve to know.
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Standard of club hurling in Cork is very poor.
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Theyâll leverage the number of clubs soon though.
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I am to Cork as Rasputin to Tsarina Alexandra
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Give me a lever long enough, and a fulcrum on which to place it and I can move the World
Yeah but they have lads over kids who played and can teach basic drills and skills.
Dublin clubs mostly donât have that yet. The underage teams who have that in Dublin often win games by cricket scores and travel to Kilkenny and Tipp to try and play teams who will bring them on.
They do but not as good as Dublinâs .
I think numbers is a hindrance in hurling. Good coaches are a scarcity and spreading them across two or three hundred young lads in a club on a Saturday morning is a waste. Much more to be achieved by having a good coach look after 25 or 30 chaps of whatever ability. Much better chance of some of those being brought on. Kilkenny has the smallest population of the frontline hurling counties. Granted it has an advantage that it doesnât waste its resources on football, but equally youâd have to wonder had it the optimum set up in terms of number of coaches to hurlers because the standard of hurlers across all grades is so even, and Iâve yet to meet a bad Hurler from Kilkenny
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When we were up in Kilmacud there was u8 or u10 training going on on the Astro Turf, there must have been 30 adults helping out at it. As you say, they canât all have been good coaches, or even have played the game.
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That is my point. With football less of an issue as a lot of the coaches have played it and the kids are also playing football in primary schools but not hurling.
Drop off in lads playing hurling in crokes from 8 to 10 is probably 50 per cent.
Itâs a benefit to a club if they have a group of excellent underage coaches with a passion for coaching the game. Things can get a bit muddied when over eager parents want to get involved purely because itâs their young ladâs team. Then they want to progress up and be coach/selector/manager through the different age grades as little Billy gets older. We need more @TreatyStones type characters involved.
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And probably 20% every couple of years thereafter so you go from a couple of hundred to probably 30 or 40 by the time you hit minors and you lose out on all the late bloomers. The GAA should be forcing new clubs into those areas.
Yeah would agree with a lot of that.
Availability of coaches at a young level is really important. I think numbers do help though. KK have numbers because itâs all they do.
When you coach kids you see about five per cent who just have âthe giftâ and it comes so easily to them. Leverage that up and harness it and it makes a difference.
They should be. Not sure people feel part of a club. It is too big.
It is too big and even with the Go Games you are sending teams to multiple locations to get games so little real club culture and it all feels disjointed.
Also the lads who take over the coaching (fuckers with initials on club tops for under 8s) often the wrong people to do it.
Flip side is it is run very well, professional, organisation is great and getting kids interested works well.
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There are only 600 boys in every age group in Kilkenny, approximately. Even if all 600 of those played hurling (which they donât, some go to Kilkenny College, for example) itâs still some achievement to extract 30 from that sample every year to create squads that can challenge for minor honours.
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Yeah it is. A large part is culture of excellence - they are getting coached by coaches who won All Irelands, walked the walk and they play against similarly coached teams at Under age level so it pulls up the standard. Deliberate practice of a technical skill and feedback from somebody who was themselves a great player makes a big difference. You cannot learn to coach hurling from a book or a DVD.
Also a tradition of hurling which is so strong that it is a hobby they practice away from the pitches all the time. The photo of the church on day back at school with all the hurls outside it is telling.
KK hurling is a cult. It canât be used a realistic template for any other county.
Youâre not, you are a bluffer who knows one or two people in Cork and take their side and think you know it all. Matthews was haunted, absolutely haunted JBM picked up the Echo the night he did. The JBM effect galvanized the team for a period, but we soon found out there was little substance and they are now years behind the main teams. Matthews injured players, his legacy is around 9 major joint injuries, probably more. T counteract it they got a physio to replace him, so completely the opposite, and last year they were woefully undercooked.
Cork are relatively fucking useless, thats the truth. They have made one addition of note. He is handy, but as i say he is only on a par with 2-3 lads most other counties are producing. He is not that special.
You have refused to support your underage and structures comments though. Blatently avoiding it.
We have 1 Munster MInor in 12 years. Thats our underage success. With a few notable exceptions the leading development squad players are highly unlikely to make it as they lack true athleticism (although that can change/be developed somewhat) and they lack basic skills at the level players from KK & Tipp have them at for instance.