Underage Hurling and Football 2025

[wonka]

Athlone Town is 3 times a week (2 definitely & i think there may be additional gym session) with a match at weekends all over the country.
Home matches - there an hour before hand and maybe a meeting after. Minimum 4 hours for home match, never mind when its away in Waterford/Cork/Finn Harps/Dublin etc.
They require 100% atendance , there is no allowance for the odd GAA match.

There's only 168 hours in a week, LOI is surely taking 15 or 20 of those)
Can you explain to me how a young lads can combine LOI academy (that's where the best lads are, around here) and a GAA development squad ?

[jimbob17]

15 - 20 hrs, are you having a laugh? Ferbane is a 15 min drive to Athlone town. There are ways around everything. So if Athlone or any other LOI want to make big demands, then should Offaly bow down and cut our own throats by saying, 'yea young talented lad, off you go there and play your soccer or rugby'.

If Athlone really wanted a young talented player, they'd find a way to bend a little too.... and for God's sake, it's Athlone Town, not Bohs or Shamrock Rovers. They are far from 'elite'. Offaly GAA is once a week, that includes bit of gym and pitch work. The gym doesn't need to be doubled if done elsewhere. That's an hour then of GAA Training that brings talent into Offaly fold, helping them connect wth notion of playing highest level GAA.

The alternative, as is happening is to let these other sports have exclusive access to our best talent through teenage years because Offaly chooses to 'lock them out'. Essentially Offaly is facilitating situation where the best footballers or hurlers in county become better at soccer or rugby or other sports but do not improve in or get exposure to inter county level football or hurling. As result, Offaly teams are weaker than they might be otherwise, taking hidings off other counties and the best talent is not developed in any shape or form. Is that what you are advocating for?

The likes of Paddy Dunican, Cormac Egan and any amount of our senior players have been through that journey, where they were in LOI underage soccer or Midlands Rugby development squads and Offaly never lost them because they kept them engaged through dev squad years. In fact, when we had this in operation it resulted in best lads staying with Offaly, quitting the other sports over time and resulted in Offaly winning 5 Leinsters and couple of All irelands at underage across hurling and football over last 5 years.... Why would you want to move away from that?

[wonka]

90-minute session plus travel time 30 minutes plus 30 minutes faffing around = 2 hours 30 by 2 = 5 hours. Other evening Gym session 90 minutes.

6.5 hours plus 8- 10 hours for away game is >15 hours. Less for a home game

Theses soccer careers ultimately go nowhere, the players may improve, but ultimately, they come back playing GAA after they get spat out and give it up entirely. Some of these lads are that good, they don't need to be in Development squads, I can think of at least 2 lads that got onto intercounty panels shortly after they come back to the fold.

The days of multi-tasking at elite underage sports is gone -the time constraints and coaches are just too demanding.

Explain to me how your Saturday might work exactly for a LOI / GAA dual player?
Do they play 1 half each code, or do they pretend to be sick and skive off . Or do parents go cap in hand to these coaches explaining that they have other commitments ?  Best of luck with that
 

[del]

Kids are been dropped for been involved in local soccer teams never mind league of Ireland teams .

[wonka]

So if you were in charge of say, Offaly u15 football squad, you'd be satisfied to let lads come and go, depending on what Club soccer fixtures are on.

Hypothetically, you go to Kildare for an u15 development match with a either a full match day panel or alternatively, a weakened reduced panel because Tullamore, Edenderry etc. have a round of FAI cup matches .
Would you be happy to give up your Saturday's and run a team on that basis?

Speaking as a club coach, I find that many parents want their kids to play many sports as they did themselves, but that they expect the coaches to move stuff, change arrangements and basically facilitate them at every turn. Generally, not in an agressive, intrusive way but more about "sure,is in n't great that they 're playing lots of sports",but then the coaches are left to pick up the pices around training times and selction choices.

[Anon444]

These hardline approaches can work in a Kildare, Meath, all these counties with significantly bigger populations. But they will not work in a county of Offaly’s size. 1 good au17s/U20s team in each code is not good enough.

[jimbob17]

So if you were in charge of say, Offaly u15 football squad, you'd be satisfied to let lads come and go, depending on what Club soccer fixtures are on.

Hypothetically, you go to Kildare for an u15 development match with a either a full match day panel or alternatively, a weakened reduced panel because Tullamore, Edenderry etc. have a round of FAI cup matches .
Would you be happy to give up your Saturday's and run a team on that basis?

Speaking as a club coach, I find that many parents want their kids to play many sports as they did themselves, but that they expect the coaches to move stuff, change arrangements and basically facilitate them at every turn. Generally, not in an agressive, intrusive way but more about "sure,is in n't great that they 're playing lots of sports",but then the coaches are left to pick up the pices around training times and selction choices.

Offaly teams are weaker than they might be otherwise, taking hidings off other counties and the best talent is not developed in any shape or form. Is that what you are advocating for? You never answered that question.

Look this could be argued to death, but there are an awful lot of genuine Offaly GAA people really concerned with what is going on. Offaly can ill afford to be allowing the best talent go elsewhere and that is what is happening with draconian policies. I am not saying people behind them are not well intentioned, but the net result of it is not good for Offaly and in my opinion, they are grossly misguided and furthermore, doing serious harm.

Firstly, development squads now for large portion of year are on a Saturday morning - from February or so to August. That in itself is a long spell of time where they are forcing kids to choose sports as often, our dev squad sessions are played off against other sports that were traditionally Saturday mornings (soccer and rugby). Lets face it, the talent pool in Offaly is small with smaller population. We need to maximise our talent pool. Currently, we are a long way from that. If for example, it was held at another time, would that make difference at certain points of year - ie from March-May, stay away from Saturday mornings where possible. It may help avoid a battle we do not need to start and can ill afford. That sorts part of the club soccer / rugby problem. They should be available for any Saturday blitz days that arise through earlier months but they generally only take place once per month or so. The crossover then would be way less. That is a starting point. Forcing them to choose at such a young age is both divisive and needlessly counterproductive and gets the backs of parents up. Without going back to dig old wounds, the whole Cian McNamee episode was totally avoidable with a bit of balanced perspective. That didn't serve Offaly or the player well. Similar occurrences have been replicated on multiple scales without ever hitting media in recent years and it has not served Offaly well.

If I were a coach and had a young lad that was elite in rugby or soccer or basketball, I'd work with him and parents. I have seen in the past where kids chose Offaly over LOI soccer and Leinster rugby because they were treated well and included, not excluded with cold shoulder because they happen to be good at other sports. Remember these are kids who love their sport - and only at 13,14,15 years of age, have their whole sporting lives still in front of them. They are just kids who would like to do both and the best footballers and hurlers are often the best soccer and or rugby players too. Offaly would have won no U20 All Ireland without Jack Bryant, Lee Pearson, C Egan and J Furlong who came through under the old regime. They were fine soccer and rugby players when younger but they chose Offaly football. They weren't forced to choose. Among the older brigade, Dunican, Higgins, Hyland, Hayes, Tierney among plenty of others etc were good soccer or rugby players too. They all came up through development squad system, while playing other sports in tandem and were not excluded despite being in elite development systems of other sports. The way we are going now, we tell the best of our talent to go away and play your rugby and soccer if you are good at that, but you won't represent Offaly unless you drop those other sports. It has turned plenty of parents off the GAA and some may never return to fulfill potential for Offaly. The result is they miss out on GAA development opportunities. They miss out on mixing with best and learning new tactical elements that they'll need further down the track if they return. It slows their progress in GAA majorly and our teams have to function without some of the best talent in the county.

When you give ultimatums to players and parents, you generally are losing because you are causing needless resentment. Now if Athlone Town or Longford or anyone else puts gun to their head, while Offaly didn't, I'd be optimistic they'd choose Offaly over them. I know of plenty of instances where that worked in our favour in the past before this new regime, when we didnt have such draconian policy. Remember that Offaly GAA would hold a much bigger weight in the hearts of these young lads than likes of Athlone Town ever would. We are playing into soccer and rugby hands the way we are going about it letting them have first dibs on good talent. A small bit of balanced perspective and bigger picture thinking is required.

You say best of luck with demanding coaches. I say, lets be more flexible and not so demanding and win the battle for the hearts and minds of the best talent until minor level where we lock it down on other sports.

So to answer your question, for the really talented lads, I'd keep the door open throughout development phase. If Offaly ran their squads really well so that the best players chose Offaly over other sports, then our development squads wouldn't be at crisis point where loads of our best club players are left outside of our development system, where our singular dev squad football teams take pastings off Meath, Wexford and Tipperary 3rd teams among others, and where hurling development squads are losing to Roscommon, scraping over average Wicklow teams and taking hammerings off Westmeath. That, unfortunately, is where we are at and is what you are suggesting is OK! Do you really think that is acceptable and is this what you are fully advocating for?

[Lone Shark]

Lads some of the conversation here is some of the worst debating tactics I've ever heard, just looking to score cheap points rather than actually break down the issue and try to shed real light on the subject. And while that's fine for politicians on Prime Time or in the Public Accounts Committee, we try to keep up higher standards here.

(I wish that was a joke, but it really isn't)

So let's cut out the bizarre absolutes here. Nobody is saying that development squads losing hurling matches to Roscommon is acceptable (if you knew the state of hurling here in Roscommon, you'd realise how dire that is) but equally, nobody is trying to argue that a lad who is in with Athlone Town underage academy could somehow do all they ask and also make a meaningful contribution to an Offaly development squad.

It's easy to say things like

If I had a young lad that was elite in rugby or soccer or basketball, I'd work with him and parents.

but what does that mean in reality?
Even if we assume that the other sport is okay with the young lad going out and playing development squad football or hurling with Offaly, I can promise you that there is no way an Athlone Town or a Connacht Rugby squad is going to come halfway to meet you in terms of the diary. They're going to put their training and games on when they're on, and they're going to expect full attendance. Moreover, they're going to lay out their schedule, including all their strength and conditioning work, to suit players who are playing one sport. They're not going to look at it like they would in Ferbane and Belmont, where they would factor in the training load from the other sport in what they ask the player to do.

And at underage level, Athlone are no joke. Their U-17 team is coming to the end of the season, they won seven games out of ten in their division and finished well ahead of Sligo Rovers and Galway United. I don't know if it's still the case under new ownership, but it used to be the way that parents paid heavily to have their kids involved (€20 per session I was told) and they were oversubscribed. There's no bending there, it's their way or out the gap, and parents, some of which have eyes on their child playing professionally, just fall in line. So comments about saying that Athlone Town are far from elite aren't helpful. Of course they're not Real Madrid, but that's not the point.

So do you mean that the schedule for an Offaly development squad should be moved around the place to accommodate these particular youngsters? Because that's not realistic either - the whole underage games programme, including development squads and club games, is built as one overall structure to allow players to serve club and county. It's not feasible for an Offaly U-16 manager to move training from Saturday morning to Friday night, when the knock on effects on club games is potentially huge.

ie from March-May, stay away from Saturdays. It may help avoid a battle we do not need to start and can ill afford. That sorts part of the the club soccer / rugby problem.

You do know that soccer in Ireland at the highest level is a Summer sport, yes? And that some of the biggest provincial fixtures in underage rugby get played in August and September, to then allow players go back to schools rugby for the Autumn?

You can't duck and dive to try and work around all other sports and quite frankly, even if you could, I don't think you should.

And I don't say any of this to score petty debating points, I say it because I hate trite comments about "you just need to be reasonable" when in reality, being reasonable means defining what exactly that entails, not just giving easy answers. It's the equivalent of "I'm more of an ideas guy", when you're asked to put meat on the bones of your suggestions in a work meeting.

Also, the Cian McNamee example is an interesting one. As you say, he didn't spend his early teenage years in development squads, and he's still one of the brightest prospects in the county right now, and someone that could well have made his senior championship debut for Offaly by this time 2028. Maybe that's not an argument for bending the rules to allow lads like him to make a partial, half-in and half-out commitment at age 14 and 15, it's an argument to let lads choose, respect their choice, but to also be very clear to him and his family that the door is open for him when he wants to move Offaly up his priority list.

I don't think anyone would disagree that of course we need to make it clear that for every player, the door remains open, and every new season is a clean slate, where there's plenty of scope for players to come in and out. Maybe the problems that we've had owe as much to a lack of diplomacy and people management as much as they are down to the rules we put in place for who can and can't play on these squads.

One other thing which hasn't been touched on in all this. What are the other counties that have similar population profiles to Offaly doing in these situations? Obviously counties like Meath, Kildare and Dublin live in a different world when it comes to this stuff, but I'm sure Laois and Carlow have the same problems with football and hurling, Sligo and Donegal will always have lads into soccer, Limerick and Tipp football country must have heaps of lads playing rugby at a decent level.

What are these counties doing that we're not?

[Anon444]

I feel that U14 and U15 is too early for children to stick to one sport. Whatever about U16s, I know there has to be a cut off point eventually, but I don’t agree with children that young being told to pack in soccer, rugby or whatever. Could development squads change to an evening and ask clubs not to organise training for that night? I don’t know, but there has to be a better solution than one person point scoring over another.

Whatever about development squads, having those trainings on a Saturdays for U11s, U12s and U13s is utter madness. These could be done during the summer if really necessary but they are delayed for so long for one reason; to clash with other sports. They can say ‘we have games on, we can’t change them’ but I don’t think it’s fair on an U11 to miss a match of a different sport to go to a training where attendance is marked as a scaremongering tactic. I would be seriously worried about burnout, all it takes is a couple of years of below par performances for the feel-good factor drawing kids to GAA to be gone.

[Lone Shark]

I feel that U14 and U15 is too early for children to stick to one sport. Whatever about U16s, I know there has to be a cut off point eventually, but I don’t agree with children that young being told to pack in soccer, rugby or whatever. Could development squads change to an evening and ask clubs not to organise training for that night? I don’t know, but there has to be a better solution than one person point scoring over another.

I feel I'm being painted into a corner of defending the status quo here and I'm absolutely not, but I'm going to keep banging the drum that we need to stick to the realm of what's happening, and not oversimplifying things down to "I don't know what we can do, but there has to be something!"

Nobody (I hope!!) is telling 14 or 15 year old children to stick to one sport. What they are doing is saying that if you want to be part of a COUNTY development squad, then you have to be reasonably committed that you will be in attendance the vast majority of the time. An odd absence for a family event, a holiday, that's reasonable - but being away for every second session makes it much more beneficial to give that spot to a child who will get the benefit from it.

You can still play the sport, but you play for your club. That should still be the primary outlet for games for kids, and I very much doubt there are clubs in Offaly turning away players because they missed time to play a different sport for a while.

Whatever about development squads, having those trainings on a Saturdays for U11s, U12s and U13s is utter madness.

Already, we live in a county where a talented 15 year old in a dual area is in with a county panel, and playing club football and hurling, and playing up to minor level as well in some cases. Our history is littered with star players who grew up doing this.
In that context, it is absolutely not feasible to give up Saturdays to other codes and to move training to a different day. A development squad session involves a lot more travel for parents than a club match or club game (usually) so it makes sense that those county sessions are on at the weekend, and then the club activity can be spread out over the week.

The single most important thing that all development squad activity has to work around is the club games programme. That has to be the top priority at all times, and if we start turning ourselves in knots to try and accommodate lads playing other sports at the expense of our club games, then we've lost the run of ourselves entirely.

Whatever about development squads, having those trainings on a Saturdays for U11s, U12s and U13s is utter madness. These could be done during the summer if really necessary but they are delayed for so long for one reason; to clash with other sports. They can say ‘we have games on, we can’t change them’ but I don’t think it’s fair on an U11 to miss a match of a different sport to go to a training where attendance is marked as a scaremongering tactic. I would be seriously worried about burnout, all it takes is a couple of years of below par performances for the feel-good factor drawing kids to GAA to be gone.

Am I missing something - are there county squads at U11, U12, and U13 now? Or are you saying clubs should all leave Saturday mornings free as well?

If there are county squads at U-11/U-12/U-13 I will be calling for them to be binned immediately. U-14 is too early in my opinion as well, but that's where they start in most counties so I accept Offaly is under a bit of pressure to fall in line.

And of course at club level, there can be more flexibility around training times, but again, the first thing a club is going to work around is other club GAA activity, both at the same code and the opposite one. You'll find that by the time you work around all those logistics, and then also factor in that you have a finite amount of pitch time when you cater for hurling, football, LGFA and camogie, and the scope to juggle things around can get limited fast.

But above all, you need to work with parents, and what suits the kids. Weekday nights don't work everywhere, and certainly not in commuter areas like North Offaly, where you might have parents only getting in from working in Dublin at 7pm. Kids that age aren't always able for 8pm training on a school night. In terms of the prime time for children's sport, there's a reason everyone wants to do Saturday mornings, it's the golden slot. And you're not going to give that up for your group of 20 U-10s and potentially lose a chunk of your panel, all because one or two of them want to play rugby at that time.

All that being said, I'm the parent of an U-10, in two years it'll be U-12, while right now I'm the club Children's Officer. If I ever hear of any scaremongering about missing training at that age (and I have never heard of it at all, anywhere) then I will lose my s**t and make sure that ANY coach guilty of that is ran out of the club immediately. I'd say my own son missed more hurling than he attended this year due to the way fixtures fell across the three sports he plays, and when we were away during the school holiday months. Still, I know well they're just glad to see him in Four Roads when he's there.

Now just to be clear, of course the coaches will mark who is there and who isn't. That's good practice for child protection reasons, if nothing else. When you say there is scaremongering around that, what specifically is happening, or are you perceiving something in your mind when if fact, the coach just wants to make sure he has a good record of who's there, both so no child runs off on them during the session unbeknownst to him, and they can get a feel for who might need more help due to having missed time.

I really don't think using attendance as a pressure tactic is a widespread issue for any primary school age kids, if in fact it's an issue anywhere. You should name and shame if it is, and you can stand over it of course.

[private joker]

Offaly have a offaly og that runs 6-7 sessions throughout the year. Usually very early morning sessions in March April. For 11-12 year olds.

[Anon444]

I get that Saturday is prime underage sport time. Everything this time of the year is on now. When I say I don’t know what the solution is, I say that hoping that all stakeholders will get in a room and try figure out something as it is their job. I don’t believe what is going on is working, but you are right in that I don’t know of anything else that has been trialed.

Now, if you said to me would a parent from Edenderry rather travel over midweek than on a Saturday morning for an 8 o’clock session, I’m not sure they would choose the Saturdays. Obviously that’s not the same for everyone but I don’t think it’s as clear cut as saying it’s not feasible.

In terms of the county squads kids playing other sports at the minute, they won’t. They won’t go training when the enjoyment is in the matches and they can’t play them. That’s anecdotal as I’ve seen it in my clubs having been involved in both.

The U11s, U12s, U13s are training as we speak for the last 6-8 weeks I believe, and only run for this time each year. The U13s have been told ‘you must attend to be considered for selection next year.’ So again, you’re basically stopping 12 and 13 year olds from going to another sport at their busiest time of the year before the weather turns.

Again, as much as sport is great, each one is always vying to get more numbers than the other. I suppose my rant is more so centred on potentially working with rather than opposed to each sport in Offaly. Once that has been tried, maybe then I’ll have to admit I was wrong and what we’re doing is the only way.

[faithfulfanatic]

I get that Saturday is prime underage sport time. Everything this time of the year is on now. When I say I don’t know what the solution is, I say that hoping that all stakeholders will get in a room and try figure out something as it is their job. I don’t believe what is going on is working, but you are right in that I don’t know of anything else that has been trialed.

Now, if you said to me would a parent from Edenderry rather travel over midweek than on a Saturday morning for an 8 o’clock session, I’m not sure they would choose the Saturdays. Obviously that’s not the same for everyone but I don’t think it’s as clear cut as saying it’s not feasible.

In terms of the county squads kids playing other sports at the minute, they won’t. They won’t go training when the enjoyment is in the matches and they can’t play them. That’s anecdotal as I’ve seen it in my clubs having been involved in both.

The U11s, U12s, U13s are training as we speak for the last 6-8 weeks I believe, and only run for this time each year. The U13s have been told ‘you must attend to be considered for selection next year.’ So again, you’re basically stopping 12 and 13 year olds from going to another sport at their busiest time of the year before the weather turns.

Again, as much as sport is great, each one is always vying to get more numbers than the other. I suppose my rant is more so centred on potentially working with rather than opposed to each sport in Offaly. Once that has been tried, maybe then I’ll have to admit I was wrong and what we’re doing is the only way.

I agree fully with what Loneshark has said.
Athlone Town or Buccaneers Rugby or Connacht Rugby are not going to 'get into a room' with Offaly GAA to work around a solution for these lads.
Their solution is that they have 10 other young lads who will take their spot.
If a young lad is really excelling in their system and they don't have any games coming up and it's really important to him, they might turn a blind eye to him playing a county final with his club and missing a training session.

I think a workaround to all of this with development squads is to have each club harmonised in what they are doing and less focus on development squads.
Put every club into a cluster and let all of the u14s from a cluster gather for information evenings on S&C, nutrition, training, recovery etc.
If clubs have smaller numbers, let them join with other clubs for the training sessions and have an Offaly GAA coach come in every so often to make sure things are going well and young lads are being developed properly.
Have tournaments throughout the year with every club involved, or else different regional teams with the best 7-8 from each club present.
Then when they are 16 and properly developing, put more of a focus on county squads and narrow it down to 30 lads at each age.
But make sure every club is still developing the other lads and giving them a chance to succeed.

[private joker]

The way things are going there will be no coach from offaly gaa to come in. More staff leaving as we speak.
Above post has a lot of good ideas with the idea of club clusters. Another issue is there are way too many games for underage teams to the point that some players rarely get to train as they are on multipleteams in their club. U15 year in particular is quite difficult. People forget about mentor burnout too.
Too much of anything is not good.

[Tar Man]

The U11-U13 sessions are open to all players at each age group. The sessions are a basic introduction to how life will be as a Development Squad Member - basically like a secondary school open night. The Kids are split up into groups and do drills with coaches for a no of minutes before moving to the next group - nothing to taxing. At the end of the 6 week programme they play a match against another county. I have a young lad going - I think it is an excellent programme.

The U14 Development Squad members are picked from this programme. This is not closed as underage matches will be monitored and each year a new Development Squad will be picked.

I re-iterate again that this should not be viewed as a Status thing - Just because a young lad doesn't make it one year doesn't mean that he can't play Minor for Offaly. Also Cian McNamee has been mentioned a lot on earlier threads - the truth is that he didn't need to be part of a Development Squad. A spot would in all likelihood have been wasted on him - he had it, still has it. The Squad place was better going to a young lad that could be improved - to help to somewhat bring him up to Cian's level. These Development Squad sessions are expensive to run and if you don't have full or near full participation then you're at nothing. You're incurring all the costs without the benefits.

Also it has been mentioned about moving the sessions to evenings instead of weekends - this would not be fair on parents from the edges of our county who may be working outside the county as well - the status quo works best. Also if you're expecting the youngsters to attend all sports then what about player burn-out.

Everyone should remember that the job for teaching & improving our young players rests with our Clubs. The Development Squads is only an assistance to this.