Underage Development Squads

[bennydorano]

Are these an Ulster phenomenon?  Armagh & Tyrone especially seem to be coming down with them.  I cant say I think they are a good idea (Cross in Armagh refuse to co-operate with them AFAIK), we currently have a situation in our club where 5 or 6 players on the county minor panel (for the league only) aren't allowed to train with their club- in February and March!!! absolutely ridiculous.

[Uladh]

My own view on them is that they are an absolute waste of time, in our county anyway. the lads that attend them have nothing to show for it but status and the main reason i'd put forward for this is that the people running hem have no idea about teachng young lads to play football. they all seem to have a masters in setting up a maze of cones for complicated fist passing drills though...

[bennydorano]

Plus when you take out the number of various club managers' sons that are involved the numbers of talented players dwindles.

[Zulu]

Well they are certainly not confined to Ulster but I think they have a place in the development of players. In saying that I think they have gone over board with them, in my own county there are development squads for U12's now. If counties invested money in the 6-14 age group it would be money much better spent, send top quality coaches into schools during the winter, send them along to club sessions to give advice to coaches. Rather than county's investing money in trying to develop a small amount of players it should be investing in the county's club coachesto develop as many players as possible. If the underage club coaches are better trained and the county invests time and money in the early years to build strong foundations in the players it should lead to a larger and stronger teenage playing pool.

[Minder]

I suppose their main purpose is to keep some of the salaried development coaches in a job......

[rootthemout]

so much for the player burn out issue,good young players now attending development squads from u14 up,also trying to fit in school football and club,were will these boys be by 25 yrs of age?my guess would be that they would be sick of football and trying to catch up the years they wasted sitting about being told their good enough to play county senior but have to dedicate their lives to the right eating and training regime and by this stage they realise they arent going to make it.Noticed as benny said in todays irish news no cross players on development squads,its bad enough county dictating to senior players when they can play for their club but to have it from possibly u16 up is a joke!

[Rossfan]

We have them in Ros for a few years now and a lot of Gaels in this County reckon they are the reason for our improved performances at under age the last few years.
This after maybe 15 years of disasterous underage teams.

[INDIANA]

we spend as much on them as anybody- at hurling they have been an outstanding success and are directly responsible for dublin's resurgence at underage at hurling. At football they started well but have faded badly especially at minor level and u21 level.. Hard to know why but the football development teams need to be radically restructured.

[AbbeySider]

I have spoken out against the idea of underage development squads many times in the past. As well as the player burn out issue, they are a wast of time and are not a good system for producing players.

For example. There was an underage development squad in my own county. Either an U-16 or vocational schools squad a few years ago. Out of 25 players only one player from that age group made it to county U-21 grade. And I dont think that player has made the senior ranks yet.

What is known to happen is that players at that age get a county shirt too early and too easy and they slip into a comfort zone, as such in their footballing career, with the notion that they have achieved something. And they dont want to go on. I would be strongly against any collective county teams below minor.

[INDIANA]

i strongly disagree and i think that's pretty shortsighted. Some people are better than others in life and GAA is no different. There is a lot to be gained from bringing the elite from any age group together at certian stages during the year for elite coaching- advice on strength conditioning and fitness etc. And anyone who thinks development teams don;t work just look at dublin underage hurling. No tradition- no structures up to 12 years ago- now we don;t even worry about playing kilkenny at underage level- and we're improving at senior level.
I think that's too generalised - of the current dublin senior football team at least 10 of last years starting 15 came through that system. We haven't been successful at underage football recently but that's down to vested interests and managerial problems rather than a lack of talent.

[Uladh]

Fair play to the dublin hurling coordinators, they seem to concentrate on teaching the skills and teaching them well. Our develoment squads teach young lads nothing tangible. they get good advice on diet, etc but no guidance on where to improve their game.

[INDIANA]

we're starting to believe that's the same with the football here- we're just not competing at minor of late despite more expenditure at underage football. We're still producing a few good ones every year but nothing compared to what we should be considering the number of clubs we have. In contrast to the hurling which is thriving.
I am genuinely staggered by the quality of our underage hurlers coming from areas with zero tradition in the game especially in south dublin. Believe me if you can get lads from Blackrock College to play hurling - there is no county in ireland that can't make the breakthrough eventually.

[Zulu]

i strongly disagree and i think that's pretty shortsighted. Some people are better than others in life and GAA is no different. There is a lot to be gained from bringing the elite from any age group together at certian stages during the year for elite coaching- advice on strength conditioning and fitness etc. And anyone who thinks development teams don;t work just look at dublin underage hurling. No tradition- no structures up to 12 years ago- now we don;t even worry about playing kilkenny at underage level- and we're improving at senior level.
I think that's too generalised - of the current dublin senior football team at least 10 of last years starting 15 came through that system. We haven't been successful at underage football recently but that's down to vested interests and managerial problems rather than a lack of talent.

Indiana that's an overly simplistic analysis of Dublin's underage hurling success, you are of course correct in saying that the development squads have played their part in this but it is far from the only reason. There has always been a hurling tradition in Dublin and kids were always playing club hurling up through the ranks, unlike Mayo or Tyrone for example. So with playing numbers, a hurling tradition and massive investment it wasn't unreasonable to think Dublin could make strides at underage hurling.
                              The argument as I see it is not whether development squads are beneficial to player development but how beneficial are they and is there a better way of using the CB's resources. I believe that U12 and U14 development squads are more of a hindrance than a help. The most important years in a player's development are those from 6 - 14, it is here we should be investing serious time and money. And we should be coaching the coaches rather than the players. Let me give you an example, lets say I'm a county development coach and I take the best kids from the 5 clubs in the county for my squad and each club has 5 kids picked. So I'm giving quality coaching to 25 kids but that's only 25 kids out of 125 kids (5 clubs x 25 kids per club). 100 kids are being exposed to wildly vary standards of coaching during their most important developmental years.
                             Now what if instead of doing that, I took the underage coaches from those clubs and worked with them twice a week all through the winter, from say October to December giving them guidelines on what to coach for each age group and supplied them with drills, games and sample session plans to achieve those goals. What if I went to the various schools each week to coach those kids myself during the school year doing the right skill drills and games for each age group? IMO my county would have a far larger pool of quality teenage players to work with and they would have the proper grounding in the basics of athletic ability from which to develop as adult footballers and hurlers.

[INDIANA]

That's already been done in dublin Zulu. Club coaches coach the managers of the underage teams on what they should be doing- that's why the hurling system works so well in dublin at underage. Most of the kids have the basics by 10/11 and then the elite go to the devlelopment teams to get more specialised coaching again.- where as at the football the shift in emphasis is towards power conditioning and our results have gone downhill as a result.
I strongly disagree on the first point- the likes of blackrock/dalkey had no tradition in hurling- now kilmacud and cuala are two of the strongest underage teams in the county. There is no difference in 25  -5 year olds in tyrone and kilkenny. There simply isn't the will in some of the counties to try to create any tradition generally by poor county boards who plunge all the resources into football.

[Zulu]

That's already been done in dublin Zulu. Club coaches coach the managers of the underage teams on what they should be doing- that's why the hurling system works so well in dublin at underage. Most of the kids have the basics by 10/11 and then the elite go to the devlelopment teams to get more specialised coaching again.- where as at the football the shift in emphasis is towards power conditioning and our results have gone downhill as a result.
I strongly disagree on the first point- the likes of blackrock/dalkey had no tradition in hurling- now kilmacud and cuala are two of the strongest underage teams in the county. There is no difference in 25  -5 year olds in tyrone and kilkenny. There simply isn't the will in some of the counties to try to create any tradition generally by poor county boards who plunge all the resources into football.

Well that's good to hear Indiana, though the reason the footballers aren't as successful as the hurlers is more complicted than an emphasis on strength conditioning during the teenage years. On your second point, again Dublin is different than other county's as many 'country' people have moved to areas like blackrock in recent years and they have a brought a GAA tradition with them. Anyway that isn't the point of this thread so I'll stick to the point, development squads do have a place in the development of underage talent but some county's are now losing the run of themselves and just setting up develoment squads left, right and centre. I'd like to know if any CB has enlisted the expertise of sports development personnel before pouring money into their structures?
                Success is the result of many things, amongst them luck, playing talent and the oppositions ability so it is always dangerous to assume that because you did A and got result X, that A was the only reason. I'm not saying that you think like that Indiana but I fear that many CB's do.