Dublin vs Meath - Leinster Final

[Ohtoohtobe]

Clubs in Kildare are already bled dry. Five grand is money most small ones don't have mostly because we've to pay for Hawkfield.

[Ohtoohtobe]

Sorry Dinny you beat me to it. Of course we could organise ourselves better financially but when you look at Dublin employing a team of full-time commercial people, with airlines and global financial companies and car manufacturers as partners... we just can't compete with that.

[Zulu]

That's fair enough and I understand clubs in Ireland have a lot to pay for but we, a tiny club in Britain, pay towards our schools coaching programme and that's with no inter county scene (compared to Ireland) and the likelihood of many of the better kids drifting away as they get older. It's a serious drain on our very limited club resources but we understand that if we are to develop we need to do this. Excuses are easy to offer, solutions take hard work and commitment and if others want to compete with Dublin they may have to look at ways they can generate this money.

Dinny, it takes very little extra time to coach coaches as most of it is done during coaching sessions anyway. Lads can go to the course and shadow/help more experienced coaches with a goal of taking a certain age group the year after.

[Dinny Breen]

Sorry Dinny you beat me to it. Of course we could organise ourselves better financially but when you look at Dublin employing a team of full-time commercial people, with airlines and global financial companies and car manufacturers as partners... we just can't compete with that.

My own club have to service their own debts, not inconsiderable then they have to pay the Hawkfield levy and then they have to support the senior section all financial commitment so finding 5K to partly fund a coach in the schools and coach the coaches is never going to happen. Now our under-age is thriving but the coaches are not the highest quality, they tend to be enthusiastic Dads but they just don't get the coaching support they deserve.

More power to the Dublin but if anyone thinks other counties can simply follow this model without the same financial support they are not in the real world.

[Dont Matter]

How do those figures break down per player, club, coach etc?

I don't know the exact break down but we do know there's a paid strategic programme manager, paid regional development officers, paid games promotion officers, paid coaches etc etc. People say they should get more money because of population but a lot of the money goes to the paid employees, paying them would cost the same in any county. Why should Dubl$n get money from all of us to fund the development of their players?

[Ohtoohtobe]

Zulu it's not as if there's no coaching or coach development going on in Kildare. But you're talking about a county with the resources to employ six full-time coaches trying to compete with one that has about 60 (open to correction). One whose only sponsor gives 100k a year to one whose main sponsor alone gives 10 times that. One that nearly bankrupts itself building a centre of excellence to one that already has more than one comparable facility. We can nick the odd underage provincial title like we did last year but in the long run, over the long term, we're fcuked.
And we're probably one of the best off other Leinster counties. Where Offaly or Carlow or Laois, counties where there might be only two hundred able-bodied players in one age group full stop, even start, I don't know.

[J70]

How do those figures break down per player, club, coach etc?

I don't know the exact break down but we do know there's a paid strategic programme manager, paid regional development officers, paid games promotion officers, paid coaches etc etc. People say they should get more money because of population but a lot of the money goes to the paid employees, paying them would cost the same in any county. Why should Dubl$n get money from all of us to fund the development of their players?

Couldn't/shouldn't there equivalent structures in the rest of the country, perhaps on a provincial or pooled-county basis?

[Zulu]

Sorry Dinny you beat me to it. Of course we could organise ourselves better financially but when you look at Dublin employing a team of full-time commercial people, with airlines and global financial companies and car manufacturers as partners... we just can't compete with that.

My own club have to service their own debts, not inconsiderable then they have to pay the Hawkfield levy and then they have to support the senior section all financial commitment so finding 5K to partly fund a coach in the schools and coach the coaches is never going to happen. Now our under-age is thriving but the coaches are not the highest quality, they tend to be enthusiastic Dads but they just don't get the coaching support they deserve.

More power to the Dublin but if anyone thinks other counties can simply follow this model without the same financial support they are not in the real world.

Nobody said you could do it without financial support but if you put up some of the money yourselves then you have a far stronger hand going to CP looking for financial assistance.

It would be very easy for clubs to get expert coaches in once a month to take a morning course with all underage coaches if that would help improve coaching standards. Or even pay for coaching resources online and distribute them to all your coaches to help them with ideas. Loads can be done if there's the interest and IMO there is nothing more important than developing high quality coaches who work with your 6-14 year olds. Get it right there and it's a far easier process later on.

[Dinny Breen]

That's fair enough and I understand clubs in Ireland have a lot to pay for but we, a tiny club in Britain, pay towards our schools coaching programme and that's with no inter county scene (compared to Ireland) and the likelihood of many of the better kids drifting away as they get older. It's a serious drain on our very limited club resources but we understand that if we are to develop we need to do this. Excuses are easy to offer, solutions take hard work and commitment and if others want to compete with Dublin they may have to look at ways they can generate this money.

Dinny, it takes very little extra time to coach coaches as most of it is done during coaching sessions anyway. Lads can go to the course and shadow/help more experienced coaches with a goal of taking a certain age group the year after.

Your goals are different, your club are trying to build a player base and ultimately a volunteer and support base. The problem Leinster clubs face is that our coaching structures from bottom up are not at the same level as Dublin clubs, we would as many enthusiastic members but do not have the same financial support, that is the bottom line, Dont Matter may present his argument in an obnoxious manner but it's still valid I just think people like romantic notion of enthusiastic volunteers and unpaid coaches making Dublin the best they can be. 

I would disagree on the coach coaches aspect, I coach coaches in rugby and it's an on-going process certainly requires a lot of commitment from club coaches to give up their own time to better themselves as coaches especially as a lot of them only picked up a whistle because nobody else would. 

[Zulu]

Zulu it's not as if there's no coaching or coach development going on in Kildare. But you're talking about a county with the resources to employ six full-time coaches trying to compete with one that has about 60 (open to correction). One whose only sponsor gives 100k a year to one whose main sponsor alone gives 10 times that. One that nearly bankrupts itself building a centre of excellence to one that already has more than one comparable facility. We can nick the odd underage provincial title like we did last year but in the long run, over the long term, we're fcuked.
And we're probably one of the best off other Leinster counties. Where Offaly or Carlow or Laois, counties where there might be only two hundred able-bodied players in one age group full stop, even start, I don't know.

Well Laois hurling seems to have bounced back from a very low ebb and that's on the back of better organisation across the board as far as I know.

I accept all you're saying and I know well there is a lot of good things going on in Kildare GAA but if you need more CDA's then why not invest €1000 per year from each club and look for CP to match that? That would get you 3 more CDA's for a start, why not target your volunteer coaches for developmental assistance if as Dinny says they are enthusiastic but not great? You can go online and buy plenty of coaching resources which can then be emailed out to all coaches within the club for example.

[Syferus]

Zulu it's not as if there's no coaching or coach development going on in Kildare. But you're talking about a county with the resources to employ six full-time coaches trying to compete with one that has about 60 (open to correction). One whose only sponsor gives 100k a year to one whose main sponsor alone gives 10 times that. One that nearly bankrupts itself building a centre of excellence to one that already has more than one comparable facility. We can nick the odd underage provincial title like we did last year but in the long run, over the long term, we're fcuked.
And we're probably one of the best off other Leinster counties. Where Offaly or Carlow or Laois, counties where there might be only two hundred able-bodied players in one age group full stop, even start, I don't know.

Well Laois hurling seems to have bounced back from a very low ebb and that's on the back of better organisation across the board as far as I know.

I accept all you're saying and I know well there is a lot of good things going on in Kildare GAA but if you need more CDA's then why not invest €1000 per year from each club and look for CP to match that? That would get you 3 more CDA's for a start, why not target your volunteer coaches for developmental assistance if as Dinny says they are enthusiastic but not great? You can go online and buy plenty of coaching resources which can then be emailed out to all coaches within the club for example.

Aren't Laois getting a yearly grant from HQ for their hurling development? Kinda proves Dinny's and Ohtoohtobe's points.

[Zulu]

That's fair enough and I understand clubs in Ireland have a lot to pay for but we, a tiny club in Britain, pay towards our schools coaching programme and that's with no inter county scene (compared to Ireland) and the likelihood of many of the better kids drifting away as they get older. It's a serious drain on our very limited club resources but we understand that if we are to develop we need to do this. Excuses are easy to offer, solutions take hard work and commitment and if others want to compete with Dublin they may have to look at ways they can generate this money.

Dinny, it takes very little extra time to coach coaches as most of it is done during coaching sessions anyway. Lads can go to the course and shadow/help more experienced coaches with a goal of taking a certain age group the year after.

Your goals are different, your club are trying to build a player base and ultimately a volunteer and support base. The problem Leinster clubs face is that our coaching structures from bottom up are not at the same level as Dublin clubs, we would as many enthusiastic members but do not have the same financial support, that is the bottom line, Dont Matter may present his argument in an obnoxious manner but it's still valid I just think people like romantic notion of enthusiastic volunteers and unpaid coaches making Dublin the best they can be. 

I would disagree on the coach coaches aspect, I coach coaches in rugby and it's an on-going process certainly requires a lot of commitment from club coaches to give up their own time to better themselves as coaches especially as a lot of them only picked up a whistle because nobody else would.

Yes, we are in a different situation in many ways but it's similar from a financial point of view. If we didn't contribute then it wouldn't work regardless of anything else we did and there are parallels with Kildare clubs in that regard. You may have no choice but to contribute financially if you want to be able to compete. I find it hard to believe most clubs couldn't come up with €2000 a year to invest in this vital aspect of club and county development.

On the coaches, it depends. If the coach has football experience and a willingness to learn he can certainly become a decent U8,10,12 coach fairly quickly. With experience and re-education courses every so often he should be able to do the job pretty well.

[INDIANA]

I'm not sure money is the biggest factor though. Undoubtedly finance plays a big part but it costs very little to coach twenty 8 year olds properly, you can do a huge amount with a set of cones, bibs and 20 first touch footballs. There's also a huge amount of free and affordable information out there which can be easily accessed on the internet. As Indiana mentioned, in the past it wasn't unusual for good footballers to be unable to use their weaker foot for much of anything but that's all changed. Money isn't the reason a kid can't use both feet, both hands, step off both sides etc., that's down to coaching.

Dublin have an advantage in numbers and that is a great help but we saw in the world cup that Brazil, with huge numbers couldn't produce many top class players. Indeed, Dublin's numbers also bring challenges and I see no reason why counties like Meath and Kildare with big populations, a football tradition and passion for the game can't strongly challenge Dublin.

Focus on the kids, develop players comfortable on the ball, technically proficient in all aspects of the game with an ability to make on field decisions. All this can be done for a relatively small investment and will bear fruit.

Dublin have full-time games promotion officers/coaches with their clubs, part of their remit would be to coach coaches, do you think these guys are doing it for free? I've seen the figure of 50 of these coaches floating around, probably doing 30 hours a week, 9 months of they year, €10 an hour. So 500K a year investment, that to me in any language is not a small investment.

But you don't necessarily need that. There's a coaching pathway there for anybody whose interested, if clubs identified coaches with talent and some enthusiasm these guys could coach the coaches within their own clubs.

The majority of the work the paid coaches in Dublin do is in schools and as Indiana pointed out the clubs pay for at least 50% of this. Could the clubs of Kildare not all put €5,000 each into a coaching pot and ask CP to match that? I think there's around 50 clubs in Kildare so that would be €500,000 to employ 15 + fulltime coaches who could go into schools and help run club blitzes etc.

That's assuming clubs have a spare €5,000 lying about. Mine certainly doesn't. They are in debt. A lot of clubs live week to week financially.

And you think we are different! My own club hasn't a pot to piss in. Most Dublin clubs got burned badly by the property boom. Millions in debt most of them.

Paying for our club GPO is a serious expense but it's worth doing. We've forsaken building facilities to fund it because players are more important then bricks and mortar.

We go down to play clubs at hurling with our underage teams in the summer and their facilities are a hundred times better then ours. Our clubhouse is 30 years old and derelict by modern standards. So the idea that Dublin clubs aren't in the hock with banks and have clubhouses like parnells is absolute garbage really.

[Zulu]

Zulu it's not as if there's no coaching or coach development going on in Kildare. But you're talking about a county with the resources to employ six full-time coaches trying to compete with one that has about 60 (open to correction). One whose only sponsor gives 100k a year to one whose main sponsor alone gives 10 times that. One that nearly bankrupts itself building a centre of excellence to one that already has more than one comparable facility. We can nick the odd underage provincial title like we did last year but in the long run, over the long term, we're fcuked.
And we're probably one of the best off other Leinster counties. Where Offaly or Carlow or Laois, counties where there might be only two hundred able-bodied players in one age group full stop, even start, I don't know.

Well Laois hurling seems to have bounced back from a very low ebb and that's on the back of better organisation across the board as far as I know.

I accept all you're saying and I know well there is a lot of good things going on in Kildare GAA but if you need more CDA's then why not invest €1000 per year from each club and look for CP to match that? That would get you 3 more CDA's for a start, why not target your volunteer coaches for developmental assistance if as Dinny says they are enthusiastic but not great? You can go online and buy plenty of coaching resources which can then be emailed out to all coaches within the club for example.

Aren't Laois getting a yearly grant from HQ for their hurling development? Kinda proves Dinny's and Ohtoohtobe's points.

No, that was only agreed at congress this year so they weren't getting anything more than everybody else until now and it only works out at €60,000 for Laois I think as it's divided between 4 or 5 counties.

[Dinny Breen]

Sorry Dinny you beat me to it. Of course we could organise ourselves better financially but when you look at Dublin employing a team of full-time commercial people, with airlines and global financial companies and car manufacturers as partners... we just can't compete with that.

My own club have to service their own debts, not inconsiderable then they have to pay the Hawkfield levy and then they have to support the senior section all financial commitment so finding 5K to partly fund a coach in the schools and coach the coaches is never going to happen. Now our under-age is thriving but the coaches are not the highest quality, they tend to be enthusiastic Dads but they just don't get the coaching support they deserve.

More power to the Dublin but if anyone thinks other counties can simply follow this model without the same financial support they are not in the real world.

Nobody said you could do it without financial support but if you put up some of the money yourselves then you have a far stronger hand going to CP looking for financial assistance.

It would be very easy for clubs to get expert coaches in once a month to take a morning course with all underage coaches if that would help improve coaching standards. Or even pay for coaching resources online and distribute them to all your coaches to help them with ideas. Loads can be done if there's the interest and IMO there is nothing more important than developing high quality coaches who work with your 6-14 year olds. Get it right there and it's a far easier process later on.

Look I agree with you 100% but again what you say costs money, Kildare has 6 full-time coaches with probably at least 1000 plus underage coaches at different levels of ability. Logistically you'd never get them in once a month, best you'd get is shared sessions with a number of other clubs. Again on-line resources costs money and time, bringing in experts cost money. Everything in Ireland costs money.

Can CP finance every county the same, why should Kildare get extra and not Meath or Wicklow? The GAA it's not very socialist is it?