Paul Earley's Ireland International Rules Squad

[Jinxy]

I find it a bit strange that people would judge players kicking ability on a once a year makey-uppey game as opposed to the game they actually play the rest of the year.

[lawnseed]

knowledge is not shared in GAA coaching. its a very narrow minded thing.

ie, the less skilled coaches get very little opportunity to learn off the best coaches

Yes correct the fellas who are good at it should be coaching the coaches

[lawnseed]

Ah listen.. The pick of ireland wouldnt give kilkenny a decent game of hurling. They cant play football!! Fellas here talking about the all blacks..  They dont play football!! Talking about belgiun soccer.. They dont play football!  We play football!! The aussies who dont play football outscored us in a fair game that is as near to our game as dammit.. Thats the truth. We had county players kicking 2om frees wide right in front of goals made 3 times bigger. Players failing to kick ten yard passes player kicking frees straight to the aussies! Short kicks! Thats not good enough. The guy whos name is on that cup was better than that and he deserves better. Its our cup and they have it! No excuses abiut underage training or any other shite will excuse what we saw

Problem is lawnseed your post is 20 years out of date. If you don't know why the skills were executed badly then you never improve. Are you from Mayo?

Enlighten me ind why does a player lawded by pundits and managers kick a free wide of goals that are 30m wide when hes less than 30m from infront of them? Its inexcuseable. Fellas like maurice fitz would have stuck it in the net..  On saturday past or 20 years ago

[manfromdelmonte]

knowledge is not shared in GAA coaching. its a very narrow minded thing.

ie, the less skilled coaches get very little opportunity to learn off the best coaches

Absolute nonsense. The GAA run comprehensive coaching courses at all levels in every county. Some led by the countries best coaches. Those who want to learn and coach,,it's all there for them. The rest moan about the lack of opportunity and write posts like the above.

the coaching courses are usually aimed at beginners or low level level coaches.
by rights, every county should be having their own coaching network events

how many counties run coach mentoring programmes?
what counties allow some club coaches to shadow their county coaches for a number of sessions to pick up a few things

and a lot of lads delivering coaching courses are only doing so because they've completed a tutor course. while the really good coaches were off upskilling and coaching

[shawshank]

I watched the game on sat and came away thinking we were crap. I watched it last night again and the our first half was crap, our skill execution was poor, and IMO it was due to our attitude, and that's hard to explain considering the nature of the trip and game, but in the second half we were exactly the opposite because our attitude completely changed. In the first half there was no urgency or pressure, the second half we displayed the skills and attitude required. Ireland were excellent the second half and the Aussies were nearly as poor as we were in the first half. Their decision making was equally as weak as ours when the correct pressure of tackling was applied.

[Jinxy]

Some of ye are fierce insecure.
"Oh no, the Mayo lads are making us look bad in front of the Australians!"
Get over it.

[Hound]

Enlighten me ind why does a player lawded by pundits and managers kick a free wide of goals that are 30m wide when hes less than 30m from infront of them? Its inexcuseable.

Some of ye are fierce insecure.
"Oh no, the Mayo lads are making us look bad in front of the Australians!"
Get over it.

The Aidan O'Shea miss was the worst shot I've ever seen!

You couldnt help but laugh out loud as it speared towards the corner flag 

Obviously some on here have used it as a stick to beat the Mayo lads with, and some of the Mayo lads have reacted as intended. But its only a bit of banter. If there were Cork lads on here, I'm sure Colm O'Neill would be getting more stick for all the misses he had.

But I guess Aido will be keeping that left boot of his in its holster next year 

[Rossfan]

Some of ye are fierce insecure.
"Oh no, the Mayo lads are making us look bad in front of the Australians!"
Get over it.

All right for you - ya don't have to live next door to the feckers 

[Jinxy]

Enlighten me ind why does a player lawded by pundits and managers kick a free wide of goals that are 30m wide when hes less than 30m from infront of them? Its inexcuseable.

Some of ye are fierce insecure.
"Oh no, the Mayo lads are making us look bad in front of the Australians!"
Get over it.

The Aidan O'Shea miss was the worst shot I've ever seen!

You couldnt help but laugh out loud as it speared towards the corner flag 

Obviously some on here have used it as a stick to beat the Mayo lads with, and some of the Mayo lads have reacted as intended. But its only a bit of banter. If there were Cork lads on here, I'm sure Colm O'Neill would be getting more stick for all the misses he had.

But I guess Aido will be keeping that left boot of his in its holster next year 

I thought he was left-footed.

[INDIANA]

Ah listen.. The pick of ireland wouldnt give kilkenny a decent game of hurling. They cant play football!! Fellas here talking about the all blacks..  They dont play football!! Talking about belgiun soccer.. They dont play football!  We play football!! The aussies who dont play football outscored us in a fair game that is as near to our game as dammit.. Thats the truth. We had county players kicking 2om frees wide right in front of goals made 3 times bigger. Players failing to kick ten yard passes player kicking frees straight to the aussies! Short kicks! Thats not good enough. The guy whos name is on that cup was better than that and he deserves better. Its our cup and they have it! No excuses abiut underage training or any other shite will excuse what we saw

Problem is lawnseed your post is 20 years out of date. If you don't know why the skills were executed badly then you never improve. Are you from Mayo?

Enlighten me ind why does a player lawded by pundits and managers kick a free wide of goals that are 30m wide when hes less than 30m from infront of them? Its inexcuseable. Fellas like maurice fitz would have stuck it in the net..  On saturday past or 20 years ago

Pure technique. Maurice harnessed his ability to kick a football from a very young age and could kick the ball with either foot by the time he was 6 years of age. The fact he was from South Kerry is a complete coincidence. His club and his parents deserve credit for that. By the time his adult career came around he never had to worry about hitting short range frees because his technique was so good - even if he slightly mis-hit it he'd still score.

If you look at Aidan O Se- he's a big strong fielder of the ball who probably dominated underage matches through size alone and never refined his skills because of it. He simply wasn't trained as well as Fitzgerald. Diarmuid Connolly was scoring with two feet when he played for Scoil Mhuire. By the time he got to 15/16 he could score off either foot from 45 yards.

Its was a test of Aidan's skill- he's not a freetaker for Mayo. So he had to kick a static free in front of a big crowd under pressure and his technique failed him. that's nothing to do with being from Mayo.

I've seen plenty of Dublin players doing it. My comment about Mayo players in the thread was tongue in cheek. Jesus don't take it so personally.

[muppet]

Ah listen.. The pick of ireland wouldnt give kilkenny a decent game of hurling. They cant play football!! Fellas here talking about the all blacks..  They dont play football!! Talking about belgiun soccer.. They dont play football!  We play football!! The aussies who dont play football outscored us in a fair game that is as near to our game as dammit.. Thats the truth. We had county players kicking 2om frees wide right in front of goals made 3 times bigger. Players failing to kick ten yard passes player kicking frees straight to the aussies! Short kicks! Thats not good enough. The guy whos name is on that cup was better than that and he deserves better. Its our cup and they have it! No excuses abiut underage training or any other shite will excuse what we saw

Problem is lawnseed your post is 20 years out of date. If you don't know why the skills were executed badly then you never improve. Are you from Mayo?

Enlighten me ind why does a player lawded by pundits and managers kick a free wide of goals that are 30m wide when hes less than 30m from infront of them? Its inexcuseable. Fellas like maurice fitz would have stuck it in the net..  On saturday past or 20 years ago

Pure technique. Maurice harnessed his ability to kick a football from a very young age and could kick the ball with either foot by the time he was 6 years of age. The fact he was from South Kerry is a complete coincidence. His club and his parents deserve credit for that. By the time his adult career came around he never had to worry about hitting short range frees because his technique was so good - even if he slightly mis-hit it he'd still score.

If you look at Aidan O Se- he's a big strong fielder of the ball who probably dominated underage matches through size alone and never refined his skills because of it. He simply wasn't trained as well as Fitzgerald. Diarmuid Connolly was scoring with two feet when he played for Scoil Mhuire. By the time he got to 15/16 he could score off either foot from 45 yards.

Its was a test of Aidan's skill- he's not a freetaker for Mayo. So he had to kick a static free in front of a big crowd under pressure and his technique failed him. that's nothing to do with being from Mayo.

I've seen plenty of Dublin players doing it. My comment about Mayo players in the thread was tongue in cheek. Jesus don't take it so personally.

Your comments (plural) weren't tongue on cheek, they were knob on forehead.

[INDIANA]

Ah listen.. The pick of ireland wouldnt give kilkenny a decent game of hurling. They cant play football!! Fellas here talking about the all blacks..  They dont play football!! Talking about belgiun soccer.. They dont play football!  We play football!! The aussies who dont play football outscored us in a fair game that is as near to our game as dammit.. Thats the truth. We had county players kicking 2om frees wide right in front of goals made 3 times bigger. Players failing to kick ten yard passes player kicking frees straight to the aussies! Short kicks! Thats not good enough. The guy whos name is on that cup was better than that and he deserves better. Its our cup and they have it! No excuses abiut underage training or any other shite will excuse what we saw

Problem is lawnseed your post is 20 years out of date. If you don't know why the skills were executed badly then you never improve. Are you from Mayo?

Enlighten me ind why does a player lawded by pundits and managers kick a free wide of goals that are 30m wide when hes less than 30m from infront of them? Its inexcuseable. Fellas like maurice fitz would have stuck it in the net..  On saturday past or 20 years ago

Pure technique. Maurice harnessed his ability to kick a football from a very young age and could kick the ball with either foot by the time he was 6 years of age. The fact he was from South Kerry is a complete coincidence. His club and his parents deserve credit for that. By the time his adult career came around he never had to worry about hitting short range frees because his technique was so good - even if he slightly mis-hit it he'd still score.

If you look at Aidan O Se- he's a big strong fielder of the ball who probably dominated underage matches through size alone and never refined his skills because of it. He simply wasn't trained as well as Fitzgerald. Diarmuid Connolly was scoring with two feet when he played for Scoil Mhuire. By the time he got to 15/16 he could score off either foot from 45 yards.

Its was a test of Aidan's skill- he's not a freetaker for Mayo. So he had to kick a static free in front of a big crowd under pressure and his technique failed him. that's nothing to do with being from Mayo.

I've seen plenty of Dublin players doing it. My comment about Mayo players in the thread was tongue in cheek. Jesus don't take it so personally.

Your comments (plural) weren't tongue on cheek, they were knob on forehead.

I suppose to the intellectually paranoid I suppose you're right

[AZOffaly]

I think it's like everything else, there's a middle ground. I find drills are important for the *teaching* element. It allows you to introduce the skill and have lads execute it in a controlled environment to at least get comfortable with the idea of what they are trying to do.

After that, drills or conditioned games, or whatever you call it, the idea as far as I'm concerned is to execute the skills they are learning in a scenario that provides them loads of touches of the ball, in a dynamic setting. So regardless of what you actually call them, I think little games (even there are no 'goalposts' as such) are the best way of learning and becoming proficient with the skills. i.e. 'practice'.

In hurling, one of the most effective 'drills' we do is a blast from my childhood. It's basically '2 goals and in' for under 8s. We split them into groups of 3, and basically we play a game of 1 v 1 with a goalie, and when someone scores 2 goals they go in and the goalie comes out. To do this properly, you need to try and make the groups fairly even so that one lad is not getting completely hammered every time, but there's no harm if he is getting it hard, we always tell them that's how they get better. When they finally score a goal against a 'better' lad, you should see them celebrate

In football, we try to work on kicking and catching primarily. I don't really even do much on the fist pass at that age. We've introduced it, but we don't really work on it as such. One of the games the kids like in this is sort of like 'donkey' for teams. Have 2 rectangles about 15 metres apart. Make the rectangles big enough that a team of 4 or 5 will have to move around a bit to cover it. Have a team in each rectangle, with a couple of footballs. Team A has to kick a high ball that goes at least the 15 metres. They get a point if the opposing team let it hit the ground inside the rectangle. We've found it helps with accurate kicking, as lads look for the gaps; catching, obviously; and also teamwork as lads have to work with each other to make sure they don't all go for the one ball.

Someone above said something I agree 100% with, and it's a huge bugbear of mine. I hate to see lads (at any grade) standing around behind a cone waiting for their turn. It's bad enough for an adult, but for a child it's just a recipe for disaster. Have loads of sliotars (1 per child) and footballs (1 per 2 children) and make your 'drills' or 'games' in such a way that everyone is having a touch, or a kick, or a puc, as quickly as possible.

If you're like us, you'll only have the kids for 1 hour maybe twice a week. You can't legislate for how much they are practicing at home so it stands to reason that you want them to kick or puck the ball as much as possible in your sessions. A ball a man, and fluid 'games' are the way to ensure that.

Also if you are playing a traditional type games (by that I mean Team A v Team B with goals and points) try and keep the games as small as possible. 4 v4 or 5v5 at u6 level, 5v5 or 6v6 at U7 and 7v7 at U8.

[AZOffaly]

Seeing as how someone mentioned South Kerry, I was at an U10 blitz down there this summer, and I thought they had a brilliant rule. They give 1 point for a 'goal' and 3 points for a 'point'. It really was evident how the young lads and ladies were trying to kick points from 20 metres out, instead of running it in for goals.

[DennistheMenace]

The international rules game brought back some good memories how have football used to be played for me.

Long kick-outs, battles for possession, high fielding on occasion, long punts up the pitch, man on man. God I miss that type of football.