Antrim Football Thread

[Milltown Row2]

Colin toal is currently the manager of St pats lisburn (going into his 2nd season), before that was at sarsfields for 3 years and had been involved previously at Glenavy and county minors. Improved sarsfields from a team that hadnt won a league game for near 2 years to 3 intermediate championship semi finals in a row. Beating the much talked about Dunloy "championship"  team along the way-sarsfields and cargin the only teams to beat them in 2 championship seasons. Has done some coaching sessions in clubs such as castleknock in Dublin and clubs in Galway and sligo as well as closer to home. Tommy logan has been his assistant for the last 4 seasons at Sarsfields & lisburn. Anyone who seen St pats last season compared to previous seasons will recognise what good coaching can do to players. Peter mckeever has been in and around the Antrim club scene for about 18 years at various clubs. MGD is a coach working  all over the country dealing with well being, particularly  with young people  and parents. Gavin breslin- just Google him- highly respected psychologist. I don't know the other 2 lads, but knux won't have them there for the laugh. There are plans to get some of the names (ex county)  mentioned before by other posters in to do sessions and thomas mcann to work with the players too. To me it's management  team designed to improve and develop players, there won't be much silverware come the end of the championship, but there will be better players by the end of it and better results compared to the last few seasons. We need to start somewhere!

Great insight thanks for that... still not impressed though but good luck for season ahead.

mr2 coming from a club who had a great recruitment policy and provocatively sought players and managers to make them so successful,  cant understand why you would downplay Antrim ability to do the same with management teams

Name me one club in Antrim that hasnt had outsiders in one form or another?

[Take the Mark]

Why do you think thats the case? In house managers would generally carry some sort of baggage or favouritism (or the opposite!). An outside man usually wont have this.

The above makes the u20 appointments mildly refreshing if nothing else as I dont think any of them have sons on the panel, unlike in various years gone by. So good luck to them.

[Níl a fhios agam]

Take the mark hit nail on the head with inside managers at clubs. I personally would have always backed one of my own over an outsider but outsiders generally get more out of teams unless you have a bad one or an exceptional in house man like John Mckeever.

Again agree with the eradication of doting dads at underage county level, been a big problem for us historically and that stance to look elsewhere is welcomed. But at the same time, it cant be the over riding factor for someone to get a job.

I still think we can do more to lure people into these roles. Even if its on a paid basis are we not better investing in our future talent than paying Senior management teams 10s of thousands, which they spend most of their time trying to coach things that should have been developed at undrage level. Arse about face alot of it

[imtommygunn]

Take the mark hit nail on the head with inside managers at clubs. I personally would have always backed one of my own over an outsider but outsiders generally get more out of teams unless you have a bad one or an exceptional in house man like John Mckeever.

Again agree with the eradication of doting dads at underage county level, been a big problem for us historically and that stance to look elsewhere is welcomed. But at the same time, it cant be the over riding factor for someone to get a job.

I still think we can do more to lure people into these roles. Even if its on a paid basis are we not better investing in our future talent than paying Senior management teams 10s of thousands, which they spend most of their time trying to coach things that should have been developed at undrage level. Arse about face alot of it

Yeah I would strongly agree with this - hurling and football the same. We aren't even close to competitive with the "A" standard at underage in either code yet we expect to suddenly turn senior, throw some money at some big(gish) name then all the players who weren't competitive will suddenly become competitive.

[Gael-in-exile]

I was told a story once of a county employed coach asked into a small one code club to help them develop their coaching etc.
When it came to finalising details he refused to run the session with their seniors and aimed at the coaches from minor up. He informed the club if they really wanted to develop it started at the bottom and he would work with 8-12 year olds and wanted the juvenile coaches in attendance.
I think his main reason was that running a session for seniors and upper age coaches would only grow maybe the level for a year or 2 but overall to develop the club in longer term it had to start at the bottom to create a greater impact. I was surprised when I heard it but found it a pleasant approach.

On the subject of parents involved there are a number of factors. Yes many are looking after a son or daughter and it can be a negative (or at times worse), some are involved as it's a child's age but have a good approach to the broader benefit of that age group and some are involved as volunteers are hard to come by so a parent is usually an easy way to get volunteers.
However I was once chastised many years ago for suggesting a policy that all teams have at least one non parent involved - ironically the response was "what's wrong with parents taking kids teams?" by a parent who never volunteered on any other level or basis within the club over a 20 year period outside of child's team.

[NatSoSaff]

And we wonder why we are where we are.

Shooting down these guys before they have a foot in the door sums us up. There has been no shortage of good coaches and managements in place over the years with these minor and U21 groups (granted there is an argument over the doting dads on occasion). But these squads have had recognised and respected coaches like McGettigan, McCabe, Convery, Douglas, Jackman, Higgins etc, and I'm probably missing a few glaring ones (was Gearoid Adamas and Sean Kelly involved at a time?)

These guys can only work with what they inherit at this grade. We're still naïve enough to stone the commitment and effort of coaches rather than to tip the hat, or better still row in behind them in whatever capacity we can.

We still look to be miles behind in our physical development and I never seem to hear of much activity with the younger development teams? Bannside you seem to be in the know - is there much happening or much planning going on to address the development of players further down the age grades?

[bannside]

Good point Nat, we shouldn't gloss over the fact that plenty of good ex players and decent coaches have already been involved over the last few years, and people here and elsewhere happy to dismiss those efforts because they see little or no reward or improvement on results.

All we can ask for is good quality people to step up and do their very best. And thats been happening for years.

Problem is though....as Antrim put more effort energy and resource into all things development squad related, and making improvements along the right lines, other counties are not standing still, and are enhancing their own model including schools and clubs.

It's been said here dozens of times, development squads and schools can only work within the broad base of talent being provided by clubs.

We want to make a real difference, it's at club level. Give schools and development squads something to work with and stop spreading the blame elsewhere.

[bannside]

Nat, for what's its worth I'm told out current under 14s and under 15s are easily the best some of our development squad coaches have seen. They compete well amongst their peers across Ulster and are getting everything they need at development squad level, S&C, nutritional advice, light psychology in places (hunger, desire, ambition, sacrifices all that stuff) and no shortage of commitment in terms of hours devoted or commitment level.

Maybe we could appreciate the good work that is going on. Every so often I'd bump into our head of coaching and development, and tbh, I've nothing but admiration for his efforts and quality of his totally voluntary commitment in the face of so much negativity and more than a few punishing results during his tenure.

[BigGreenField]

Nat, for what's its worth I'm told out current under 14s and under 15s are easily the best some of our development squad coaches have seen. They compete well amongst their peers across Ulster and are getting everything they need at development squad level, S&C, nutritional advice, light psychology in places (hunger, desire, ambition, sacrifices all that stuff) and no shortage of commitment in terms of hours devoted or commitment level.

Maybe we could appreciate the good work that is going on. Every so often I'd bump into our head of coaching and development, and tbh, I've nothing but admiration for his efforts and quality of his totally voluntary commitment in the face of so much negativity and more than a few punishing results during his tenure.

I'd agree with this with the added plus that it is coming from a spread of clubs across the county suggesting some of the juvenile coaching improvements have begun to take root (but a lot more to do). A Quick Look at clubs social media also see's a steady stream of clubs regularly  taking their juveniles outside the county for games all year long and the perspective that brings,  this is also now widespread - all hard yards being done by lots (a lot more to do on the quality and coaching focus).

I do think the missing gap is the schools willingness to take teams into top tier competitions and to do the work during the winter that is needed to achieve this on a multi-year basis.

All 4 (county, club, school, individual) need to be spinning in the same direction to really take off.

[bannside]

You can definitely see plenty of green shoots, just using PG1 as an example, a complete re boot of juvenile structure about 7 or 8 years ago just starting to pay dividends.

Cumann Na Bunschoil all county primary school champions five times years out of last 8 years. Many other clubs on a progressive juvenile curve too, great to see.

Clubs is where main change for the betterment of Antrim football can happen. Once schools see the quality of intake rising there's a good chance they will grasp the nettle too....

[Duine Inteacht Eile]

What should a school be doing?

[Milltown Row2]

I don't think there is an appetite within Antrim schools to push to those heights with top grade football, that's between kids, parents, teachers and coaches.

Been lucky enough to be involved in officiating some of the higher grade games, the difference is is easy to see.

this isn't a reflection on those that at the coalface of course, you can only work with what you've got. Clubs ultimately have a big part to play. But at underage we are miles off the pace

[Duine Inteacht Eile]

I don't think there is an appetite within Antrim schools to push to those heights with top grade football, that's between kids, parents, teachers and coaches.

I don't think that's true of teachers & coaches. Why wouldn't they want to?

You get the odd Antrim school in A competitions when they have a decent year group so it's not as if they don't push them.
A decent year group is few & far between in our schools. In the same way as it is for our county underage teams.
Schools drawing largely from the same group of players for both codes hampers the amount of time they can invest too.
Clubs are doing the heavy lifting in every county. Being able to compete at the top end of school football is a product of this.

[Milltown Row2]

From a teacher's perspective I struggle to see how they have the time to be proper committed to what's needed and actually do their day time job.

Getting help from outside is definitely needed, paying for it and sourcing it is the first problems.

The grade a competitions for Antrim based schools have been very few, hurling is the main school sport.

As I said this isn't a reflection on teachers/coaches, kids and parents need to buy in also

[Duine Inteacht Eile]

https://x.com/ulsterschools/status/1862142929130725379?s=46

Corn na nOg (3rd year A football)
St Mary's Belfast 6-09
St Mary's Magherafelt 2-08


There's no context but it must be the best result an Antrim school has had in Colleges football in a long time.