If we are serious with progression at Inter County level, you would need to enact a 20/30 year plan.
You would need buy in from non traditional hurling areas, i.e North Meath. It would have to start with designated dual coaches I'd say being appointed to certain areas and building from the ground up.
It would have to start with schools coaching and work its way into the clubs. Why I say dual coaches is because I believe up until maybe u10's trainings should be 1 night football, 1 night hurling under the umbrella of "GAA" training.
Children will develop a sort of ambidexterity between the 2 codes and then be able to potentially take up both when moving towards more organised games at u12 level etc.
You would probably need the formation of amalgamations at underage level to give smaller clubs a chance at surviving as I feel football will always still be the biggest puller in these areas. I would push towards regional level centres of excellence up until maybe u15's.
Specialist coaches brought in to do particular skills based training, strength and conditioning etc. Ideally these would be ex inter county hurlers from successful counties that would get buy in from players.
On the coaching end of things it would take a lot of buy in from parents and club members to be trained up to a standard where they could take on some of the more nuanced facets of the game.
There would also have to be a push for equal opportunity of resources that football development squads get. To be honest I really could see some of these strategies working in the long term but it would take time, investment and a lot of buy in from people all over the county.
Replying To 3rdmanin: "If we are serious with progression at Inter County level, you would need to enact a 20/30 year plan.
You would need buy in from non traditional hurling areas, i.e North Meath. It would have to start with designated dual coaches I'd say being appointed to certain areas and building from the ground up.
It would have to start with schools coaching and work its way into the clubs. Why I say dual coaches is because I believe up until maybe u10's trainings should be 1 night football, 1 night hurling under the umbrella of "GAA" training.
Children will develop a sort of ambidexterity between the 2 codes and then be able to potentially take up both when moving towards more organised games at u12 level etc.
You would probably need the formation of amalgamations at underage level to give smaller clubs a chance at surviving as I feel football will always still be the biggest puller in these areas. I would push towards regional level centres of excellence up until maybe u15's.
Specialist coaches brought in to do particular skills based training, strength and conditioning etc. Ideally these would be ex inter county hurlers from successful counties that would get buy in from players.
On the coaching end of things it would take a lot of buy in from parents and club members to be trained up to a standard where they could take on some of the more nuanced facets of the game.
There would also have to be a push for equal opportunity of resources that football development squads get. To be honest I really could see some of these strategies working in the long term but it would take time, investment and a lot of buy in from people all over the county."
Football and Hurling Development Squads share equal resource. No difference!
Replying To Stiofan: "Football and Hurling Development Squads share equal resource. No difference!"
That is completely incorrect, football development squads have much more resources and funding . I have been involved with hurling development squads and difference is night and day. That's where hurling in the county is failing to start off with .
lost too many big hurling clubs in the heartland and gained very few, even before we start talking of spreading hurling to north and east meath. Rathmolyon, Athboy, Killyon and Boardsmill all have 25 senior titles between them i think. we need to get all of those clubs competeing for senior semi finals again. Ratoath and Kildalkey have been the only clubs to breakthrough in last 20 years from winning nothing before. Kilskyre/Moylagh and Clan na Gael has great potential as theiir in hurling area and people in the areas already are very interested in it. very hard to compete for interest in hurling north of kells or east of navan. Vast majority of GAA people in those regions will probabaly never have been to a hurling game in their lives, thats almost 50% of the landmass of the county. Navan and Dunboyne need huge resources put in as well they have population to have seperate players playiing football and hurling.
Totally unconnected to the topic at hand, but does anyone know what exactly the "constitutional" status of Moylagh/Kilskyre is? I presume they're still counted as 2 separate clubs administratively, especially since Moylagh still field their own football team. Say at county board meetings, do Moylagh get one vote and Kilskyre one vote?
Reason I ask is, if they were to win the IHC, there's a good chance they'd be unable to enter the Leinster JHC since they're a combined team made up of 2 different clubs.