Donât know the full details here but Iâd be certain these lads have club and school mates who would have been desperately hoping to make the development squad and didnât. It can be very dispiriting for the lads not selected to then see the selected lads pick and choose when they go with the county and when they play a soccer game. Surely the whole idea of the development squad is to give lads a chance to play at a higher level, being dropped now doesnât stop them joining in the years to come.
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This is it. If they canât commit to it then someone who can should have the opportunity. Itâs not a summer camp like.
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I donât want to throw another dagger at @Malarkey but Mick Wallace used regularly collect players from county u16 football training when it was done and bring them to his u16 training. Things might have gone south once the LOI team was formed but for many years he was more than accommodating to GAA.
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They missed one training session. That does not mean they canât commit to it. Iâd be surprised if there was 100% attendance at every other training session
Love the GAA but these lads over county development squads everywhere have lost the plot. Most have no great coaching or playing careers either. Young lads at 14 thinking their nearly above playing for their club. Iâd always encourage lads to play other sports.
And to Putin. A big fan of dictatorships
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They missed a training session to play for their small home club in a national quarter final against one of most famous clubs in the country. Thatâs genuinely a once in a life time opportunity for most of those lads. They 100% made the right call, itâs the adults that are at fault, but its the children whoâll suffer.
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Fair enough and thank you for the information. But that happenstance does not change what came later â and the deafening (social) media about what came later compared to the hoohah about GAA matters.
I presume at u14 development level they would train once a week with the county and maybe for 20 weeks, 20 sessions overall? If you can commit and you enjoy it then do it, if you canât then let another kid have a chance.
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Very good.
There are quite a few lads in this thread who are simply being obtuse. They do not want to consider the divergence between what happened in Offaly at U16 and at U14. @Gman aside, I should say (although I do not agree with his take on the divergence).
I was U14 manager in my own club for two years in the early 2010s. We had to accommodate young fellas playing soccer, playing rugby, doing athletics, playing basketball. We even had to accommodate primary school Gaelic football. We happily made those accommodations because kids trying different codes most certainly is a good thing.
People here, through obtuseness, are eliding two different considerations: the good of discipline and consistency within a panel of players; the good of experiencing different sports. Children will accept mentors getting something wrong. My experience is that children are exceptionally quick, though, to sense certain panelists being given special treatment because of greater natural ability. The most worthwhile compliment I ever got happened after we won the Club All Ireland in 2019, when one of those former U14s said to me in Irishâs pub: âYou treated all of us the exact same, even the lads who are not hurling now.â We had a few nice Ballyhale pints together.
Comes back to my remark about Ballygunner GAA Clubâs pitch and those soccer juveniles. Via rhetoric about children, people often try to bully anyone trying to offer a calm rational analysis of dynamics surrounding the GAA.
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Ah, he is quite open about West Tipp after half a dozen pints and maybe a song or two! We had a great impromptu singsong last year in Ă Riadaâs, when one of Corkâs finest players got it going.
One of my favourite people to meet in Kilkenny. Young lads I know who experienced him at Kilkenny RFC have only praise.
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Exactly. But where is the (social) media outrage about this reality? Or the TFK outrage?
You have to use common sense with rules. They can never be black and white, especially when dealing with kids. Yes, consistency is important but so too is a bit of cop on, compassion and being reasonable. The lads were playing a huge game in another sport for their parish. Common sense tells you to wish the lads well and we will see you next week. This shows strength not weakness.
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So why did the U16s negotiate this issue with no problem?
Honest question. You are always a reasonable person.
I have not read about u16 incident.
My information is that they do not. My information is also that the vast majority of parents around that development panel agreed with the decision.
Thatâs fair enough and most lads here are going by what they have read in media.
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I mentioned it above. Basically, two U16 hurlers were allowed to skip a training session to play a big rugby match with their school, because their parents came in good time with a request to do so.
The Justin Kelly lad has a local reputation in Offaly for profile hungry shit stirring. He is just a tinpot populist.
Will OâCallaghan is playing to the soccer head anti GAA part of his core audience, a substantial cohort.
Honestly, handing in a request like that is a bit much for a training session. Fair enough, if it was a tournament/match.
Parents are busy. On their list of priorities, getting a note to excuse their son from attending training is not high up. You canât put that on kids.
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