George O'Connor in Wexford

[Bord na Mona man]

HOW has he been keeping since you saw him last? Flying. A new man, a new job, a new vocation.

Where for 30 years George O'Connor's life was ruled by the iron call of the cattle and of the caman, sometimes not strictly in that order, these days the only boundaries to his activities are the ones he chooses to impose on himself.

He visits clubs. He coaches coaches. He instructs schoolchildren. He organises hurling for kids on quaysides and long puck competitions for oul' lads on islands. He arranges for guest speakers like Mick Galwey to come and talk about the importance of place and community. For the past 18 months he has been the Leinster Council's hurling development administrator in Wexford. The job starts early. It finishes when it finishes.

On the day that Wexford attempt to lay a glove on their neighbours and feudal overlords following three painfully heavy defeats last season, there's a temptation to enquire what O'Connor thinks of the current state of the game there and maybe put a few words into his mouth in relation to the county's scanty representation at the Fitzgibbon Cup finals last weekend; a flick through the programme throws up only five Wexford players among the four panels, all of them well down among the subs with Waterford IT. The run without a Leinster minor title, meanwhile, is nudging the quarter-century mark.

Yet should the worst ensue at Wexford Park today, always bear in mind that John Meyler is through force of circumstance playing much the same hand that John Conran and Tony Dempsey were dealt before him. Wexford do not possess the natural resources that refresh the parts other counties can irrigate on a regular basis.

But concerns such as these are not O'Connor's direct lot any more. Instead he hands out cones and beanbags, and worries about whether children are using the correct-sized hurley, and ensures that the dominant hand is on top, and muses on the challenges presented by a changing Ireland. How many dashed walls are there to hurl up against these days like there were in O'Connors' of Piercestown when he was a lad? How many boys have three brothers . . . so handy for games of twoversus-two . . . like he did? Chores done in the evening, does anyone drop everything and cycle up the road to the neighbours' for a few pucks any more?

Does anyone even do chores any more, come to that?

Without being privy to the selection process, one can fairly take it that Wexford hurling development administrator's post was O'Connor's the moment he walked in the door for the interview. That face, that head, those battered fingers. Instant brand recognition, a formidable CV, undying popularity. He is Wexford hurling's past, this man who won an All Ireland medal in the last match he ever hurled.

He is Wexford hurling's future. Those natural resources they lack? In 10 or 15 years' time, if O'Connor does his job correctly, they won't lack them.

His year-and-a-half on the factory floor has, predictably, served as an eye opener. One of the first discoveries he made was that children who have been coached by coaches who have learned how to coach are more skilful than their counterparts of years ago. On the other hand, what he terms the "natural skill of a self-learned child" is largely missing with others. To help make up this leeway, he preaches from the gospel according to Paudie Butler and Pat Daly, the GAA's Director of Hurling and Director of Games respectively. Small hurleys, small sliotars (actually beanbags, which are much easier to catch than sliotars), smallsized games designed for small-sized people. "You can't force children into playing hurling or liking hurling. Up to the age of six or seven, they have to be allowed play with their toys. What we're trying to do is create a total fun situation that's enjoyable for them from start to finish."

The size of the stick a child uses is, O'Connor has found, the first and last and overriding essential. Ask a child to stand straight, hands by his or her side: the hurley should come up to the wristbone. It never fails to amaze him how many children are landed with too big a hurley, too long a hurley, too heavy a hurley, with potentially ruinous consequences. A boy with a 35-inch stick? Madness, he says. The equivalent would be an adult with a 47-inch stick.

Just imagine how cumbersome that would be.

"The stick is really, really important. Do not let a child get the wrong stick.

That's number one." Too heavy a hurley and the child will turn into what O'Connor describes as a "shoulder hurler . . . they're pushing the stick from too high up their body. It's like a shoulder movement." The problem is compounded when the child tries to hit the ball, throwing it across the stick (over or under) and, because the hurley is too heavy, lunging at it with the stronger hand below. "As they grow up, they'll keep the wrong hand on top and the extra time the sliotar spends in the air will give their opponent the chance to flick it away."

It's not all drills. It can't be, as a diet of fibre will pall very quickly if not supplemented by the red meat of real live matches, even fun matches that take place in a carefully controlled environment. "Imagine bringing a golfer to a course and keeping him on the first teebox practising his stroke for three weeks. You just can't do that with children. They have to be let play." Shades of the Ajax Amsterdam template, small-sized games help to broaden minds, adult minds as well as children's. What happens, as O'Connor puts it, with "a little child who starts in goal because he's too shy to say he wants to play out the field? He makes a couple of good saves on his first day and that's where he stays. Thirty-five years later he's bald and he's grey and he's still in goal. He could have been a great corner-forward or a great cornerback. But we'll never know if we pigeonholed him from the start."

With 30 part-time coaches under his wing and others in the clubs, much of O'Connor's work revolves around upskilling the coaches. You wonder if the small children he encounters on his school visits, all of them born long after 1996, have any idea who this giant come among them is.

"Maybe we're mythical creatures at this stagef Ah, they know who I am alright. But as long as I can get them out there hurling and they're having fun, that's what matters."

And they do. He left Davidstown with a song in his heart recently after a session he did with very small kids, all beanbags and hurleys and colour-coordinated cones designed to improve spatial awareness.

O'Connor was engrossed in the drill when out of nowhere he caught sight of a little girl, four years old and three feet high, coming soloing along, weaving from cone to cone. Her hurley was held in the correct hand, the beanbag was glued to the stick and amid all of this she still had time to raise her left hand, smile seraphically and wave to her mammy. Perfection.

George O'Connor did the state lavish service. Twelve years on from his greatest hour in the purple and gold, he continues to.

http://www.tribune.ie/article.tvt?_scope=Tribune/Sport/GAA&id=84827&SUBCAT=Tribune/Sport&SUBCATNAME=Sport

[Bord na Mona man]

Good news for Wexford that at last they are getting their house in order at underage.
O'Connor is definitely a serious operator and it won't be down to any of his failings if Wexford don't improve.
With Wexford's large population, they should be able to catch up fast on any ground lost to Kilkenny and Dublin over the last 10 years.

[mouview]

What'd he do with the farm? Seems like a major change in lifestyle to me...

[dodo]

Great to read this. Wexford has more football club teams than hurling, yet the hurlers get a far bigger support. With such an interest in the county surely the likes of the great George O'Connor's input will not go unrewarded.

[magpie seanie]

Heartening to read that. Hurling in Wexford is in a shambles from what I hear and has been for some time. George is a legend and when I heard of his appointment I thought he would do well. It seems he is but there is a limit to what even a great man like George can achieve on his own.