27/11/2013 15:56:50
beansycpn
County: Down
Posts: 40

1518464
If Gaelic football reverted back to teaching skills at underage rather than the current laps, laps, laps fitness-based training that currently goes on up and down the country maybe the youth of today would have more incentive to play for seniors. It would be more craic to join the priesthood. Small, skillful players are being overlooked for 6ft athletic tanks. It is an amateur sport, let's cut back on the fitness and focus on skills, and more u12s up will stick with training rather than get bombed on bottles of buckfast on friday and saturday nights/days


Can only comment with club Im involved with , theres a three prong approach to development of players and obviously its age appropriate , skills , physical condition , and nutrition .
Teenagers are advised only on the outcome of playing sport with poor diet ,
Athletic development starts at 13 run over a course of weeks , notes passed as to how to improve based on home input .
Skills is where majority of focus is and stays during training , 200 touches of ball or solitar are the aim of any session ,
I am unaware of any team doing laps , jogging is slow running and teachs slow running ,
HIT is the order of the day High Intensive Training , very regular breaks between high impact grid games .
So dont believe we are losing players down to lack of imagination or boredom at sessions , its the getting them there part thats the hard part .

Damothedub (Dublin) - Posts: 5193 - 27/11/2013 17:29:54    1518515

I'm 26, dropped out of gaa at 18.

Part of the reason was that I was a bit disillusioned at the time. For my final year of minor I was initially selected on the reserve panel, but I knuckled down and was playing well, scoring three or four points per game. Yet I was seeing fellas who had never played in my position (and usually played at the opposite end of the field) being selected ahead of me. Some lads were pally with the manager and were starting, despite the fact that they were worse than useless. One evening in particular soured it for me, when I was the only fella who didn't get a run during a friendly match.

Anyway, my family moved away a few months afterwards, and I wasn't so keen to go back playing gaelic games.

I went back to it two years while living abroad, ironically enough, and have really enjoyed it. It's at a lower level, but the training is intense enough.

Gleebo (Mayo) - Posts: 2208 - 28/11/2013 13:06:27    1518721

The rot starts 10 years earlier, at U8 level. Kids whose Dads are players tend to coach the little ones, and they make sure that: (1) their kid is coached to the nth degree between training sessions, and (2) their kid is aways put into midfield or forwards. It's all about winning, and the idea that the aim is to develop all kids' skills is a lie. Too many underage coaches are pleased to see their over-coached offspring and pets progress at the expense of kids whose parents are not natural coaches etc.

Local semi-pro soccer cubs are much better at this - lots of 3 and 4 a side games which are designed to ensure everyone has to play, and not just leaving it to the same 2 or 3 hot-housed kids. GAA club culture us deeply political. It reminds me of Winston Churchill's remark to a new Tory MP, when showing him around parliament building: "Over there, that's where the opposition sit; ands here, beside and behind you, on your side of the house, that's where your enemies sit". Wise words, and applicable to many situations.

points50swiththeargyllsonthewrongfeet (Tyrone) - Posts: 275 - 17/05/2024 16:29:59    2545307

Drink. Girls.

CARPS (Carlow) - Posts: 727 - 17/05/2024 19:45:41    2545322

Bon (Kildare) - Posts: 2085 - 17/05/2024 21:20:49    2545331

Claretandblue (Westmeath) - Posts: 1916 - 18/05/2024 10:31:51    2545350

2maroonjerseys (Galway) - Posts: 97 - 23/05/2024 11:31:37    2546550

Don't know why this thread was picked up nearly 11 years after the last post here, but this line is outrageous:
Too many underage coaches are pleased to see their over-coached offspring and pets progress at the expense of kids whose parents are not natural coaches etc.

I've coached teams up to U12 level myself for years. Sometimes there's one of my own lads involved, and sometimes there's not. But either way, I've been at it long enough to know that the ones who make most progress are the ones who practice at home by themselves in between training sessions.

And their parents don't need to be "natural coaches" for that to happen. They don't even need to know anything at all about hurling or football. All they need do is encourage their children to go out and practice according to what the other coaches and I tell them and encourage them to do.

Of course we're pleased to see children progress, whether they're our own offspring or not. But to call them "over-coached" and "pets" just because they put in the effort to practice at home is absolutely ridiculous.

Pikeman96 (Wexford) - Posts: 2621 - 23/05/2024 13:19:48    2546587

2maroonjerseys (Galway) - Posts: 97 - 23/05/2024 16:40:41    2546654