County Development Squads

[robertemmet]

What is the feeling in other counties about Development Squads?

What is the youngest age?  Is it U14.  This is too young.

What players do you target, the elite, everyone or just those that clubs nominate?

Any Tyrone folk out there?  Have they been the basis for your recent success or has it the high level of school coaching?

[Gnevin]

What is the feeling in other counties about Development Squads?

What is the youngest age?  Is it U14.  This is too young.

What players do you target, the elite, everyone or just those that clubs nominate?

Any Tyrone folk out there?  Have they been the basis for your recent success or has it the high level of school coaching?

Build has 4 hurling development squads for all age levels  South, West, North and North County , they start at u12 i think but aren't very serious .At U15 dual players must make a choice between hurling and football squads

[tayto]

Dublin selector was saying in the paper the other day that the dev squad coaches have most of the players flagged from national school. Making lads choose their code at 15 is a shame in a way, we'd probably have had no Connolly-Keaney at underage, but it'll also help the coaches pick up late developers that hadnt been part of the dev squads till then, which is a real weakness with the squads to date, coaches sticking with the same bunch all the way through instead of refreshing the panel every year.

[holylandsniper]

Armagh as far as i know club managers nominate a certain amount(think county board give them a figure)but if exceptional amount good players from one team they can have extras.  Can be good system but also a abd one where in a the manager could nominate they're favourite player, or like the best mates son rather than the best player.

[Maximus Marillius]

Development squads are in general a good idea. Strong clubs will always produce players because they have the culture and coaching systems in place, but some small clubs who would not have developed their coaching structures clubs, or in areas, such as Derry city where there is not a culture, the development squad maybe the onky way this player willbe caught and then coached properly.

[CSC]

What i find interesting is that the schools have always been development squads.
Take the Dalton cup and Derry for e.g. St Pius, the convent and Maghera all have teams in the competition, thats three development squards within the one county instead of limiting it to one a la county system. The school system also means that more kids from each of the clubs will be getting higher level coaching.
My club organised U-16 training for Sunday Mornings, as this was the only time that suited. But come the summer the county development squads training was on the same time. Great for the lads picked, but the club training session was weakened.
I belive the focus should go back to the schools, both voc and college, as they could easily be organised to prevent burnout of the young lads.

[bailestil]

Yeah they definitely serve a purpose, i know they've definitely improved a lot of our younger players.

Like Max said, it exposes them maybe to, not so much better coaching, but better players, and helps gets a bit more exposure to county coaches rather than the usual mad trawl at minor level.

I'm sure it helps a lot of the coaches that volunteer too, seeing what a county setup is like.

Surely if they are on a Saturday and U16 games are on Sunday things should work out ok.
I'd worry that this burn-out issue is going to limit football for the 95% of footballers who aren't over worked.

While the minority who are overworked, need to be monitored, it shouldn't restrict the football of the majority!

[robertemmet]

Good few vaild points.

Do all counties have U14/U15/U16/U17

In derry there is U14/U15/16 Hurling  and U15/U16/U17 football

[aontroim]

Antrim have had well structured U14/15/16 development squads for a few years now, but the U17 squads were always a disaster with anyone of a good standard already playing for either codes minor team - kind of spoilt the numbers attending the training etc - i can see that age group being scrapped this year.

[Cloc Mor]

Down also have these strcutures in place but the whole thing is a joke (well in football anyway).  The standard of coaching is very poor and as players know this, alot are reluctant to go.  The players are asked to train at very strange times in sub standard conditions.  There is little equipment available and an extreme lack of resources put in by the County Board.  Why would any lad want to play for Down if this is their first experience of pulling on the red and black jersey?

[Square Ball]

Down also have these strcutures in place but the whole thing is a joke (well in football anyway).  The standard of coaching is very poor and as players know this, alot are reluctant to go.  The players are asked to train at very strange times in sub standard conditions.  There is little equipment available and an extreme lack of resources put in by the County Board.  Why would any lad want to play for Down if this is their first experience of pulling on the red and black jersey?

agree with Cloc here. I have been to a few and there are not trained any differently from the clubs, and as for the hurling, that was a shambles last year, hope to see a vast improvment this year as there are new plans with two development teams mentioned, one from the Ards boys and one form the rest of the county, anyone know any more about this?

[johnneycool]

Down also have these strcutures in place but the whole thing is a joke (well in football anyway).  The standard of coaching is very poor and as players know this, alot are reluctant to go.  The players are asked to train at very strange times in sub standard conditions.  There is little equipment available and an extreme lack of resources put in by the County Board.  Why would any lad want to play for Down if this is their first experience of pulling on the red and black jersey?

agree with Cloc here. I have been to a few and there are not trained any differently from the clubs, and as for the hurling, that was a shambles last year, hope to see a vast improvment this year as there are new plans with two development teams mentioned, one from the Ards boys and one form the rest of the county, anyone know any more about this?

I'm still not convinced about these development squads as I think its wrong to write a load of kids off as failures very young in their careers if they don't make these squads. I'd like to see the net spread much wider which shouldn't be that difficult especially with the hurlers in Down which don't have such a large pool anyway.
I've seen it so often where the best underage hurlers are normally early developers in the physical stakes but fail to make it at adult level due to inefficiencies in their play which they got away with due their size. Obviously proper coaching may help these lads anyway but the smaller lads are normally quicker and more skilfull because they have to be and develop into the better senior hurlers . The problem in Down is that some just didn't grow enough.

[realredhandfan]

I have no doubt they have a contribution to make but I also believe they are making a contribution to burnout as well.  They really need to be monitored and restricted.