Uachtarán Chumann Lúthchleas Gael Jarlath Burns and Terry Reilly, chairperson of the Hurling Development Committee, centre, Camogie Association president Brian Molloy, right, during the Hurling Development Committee media event at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile.
By John Harrington
Whoever is appointed to the GAA’s newly advertised position of National Head of Hurling will have the ‘teeth’ to make a meaningful impact in the role.
That was the promise made in Croke Park today by both GAA President, Jarlath Burns, and his Hurling Development Committee Chairperson, Terry Reilly.
Both Paudie Butler as National Hurling Coordinator (2006 to 2011) and Martin Fogarty as National Hurling Development Manager (2016 to 2021) did great work to grow hurling in a very hands-on manner by visiting countless clubs and schools around the country.
The National Head of Hurling role will be more of a strategic role that Reilly believes will benefit from the powerful support of his Hurling Development Committee.
“I would have thought that the conditions are primed now for the person in this role to have 'teeth' like never before because you have a President who is fully behind what we're doing,” said Reilly.
“You have a member of management chairing it who is very focused, and we have a committee that's keen, eager, willing and able to assist this person to bring the best possible programme we have ever.
“Martin Fogarty didn't have, as far as we can establish, the strategic back-up of a committee that rolled out a programme on a strategy basis as opposed to games development. He did have support in that regard.
“This person will be more strategic in nature. It's not someone who will be going out and rolling out programmes on the ground. It's somebody who is working with provinces and counties in order to coach the coaches in order to roll out the programmes. So it will be much broader in nature.”
The new National Head of Hurling will have responsibility for the overall strategic development of the game of Hurling, with particular emphasis on designated counties.
They will work hand in hand with the HDC to help deliver on the Committee’s four key terms of reference which are as follows:
1: To develop a toolkit, based on best practices, to promote hurling in communities.
2: To work with hurling communities/county committees/provincial councils to seek to create new GAA clubs to cater for hurling in regions with limited representation.
3: To ensure that the establishment of new Clubs is in keeping with the Association’s Rules and Policies.
4: To provide advisory services to Central Council and its sub-committees on matters relating to hurling development.
Former Kilkenny hurling manager and current Hurling Development Committee member Brian Cody during the Hurling Development Committee media event at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile.
The implementation of these terms of references will be a long-term process that will hopefully lead to a growth of the game over a significant period of time.
It will require serious support long after Jarlath Burns’s term of Presidency, so is he confident that his successors will give it the backing that it will need to help it succeed?
“I have confidence,” says Burns. “We have discussed this at management level, we have discussed it at Ard Chomhairle. There is incredible amount of support at all areas of that.
“Terry (Reilly) did a fantastic presentation at the last Ard Chomhairle meeting. We were very lucky with the people that we have on it.
“They are very forceful and the National Head of Hurling will have teeth because they will answerable to a committee have teeth. There will be challenges on this and it is very important that we keep this momentum going. This is going to be a long, long journey for us.
“I think one of the difficulties we have in Ireland is that an awful lot of our clubs are set in their ways. They're either a football club or a camogie club or a hurling club and it's hard to get the next code in. Because we are all in the business of competitive games and there's always a feeling in one code that if you introduce the other code we would become diluted.
“That is a pity because the opposite is very much the case whenever you introduce the next code into a club it actually makes the club bigger.
“We found out in our club whenever we introduced Camogie and LGFA into our club that suddenly there was an influx of female participation in the club and at all levels in the club.
“This is a very long-term project. I won't see any results at the end of my Presidency. We might start to see the basis of results on the 150th anniversary of the GAA, or we may not. But the long-term objective here has to be that we are going to have more counties participating in the Liam MacCarthy Cup. That has to be the long-term priority.
“When I go around the counties and I go in to help them with their strategic plans and out and out football counties who might only have six or seven clubs I always ask the question, where is the section on hurling where you are actually going to do something tangible and proper for hurling? What you get back often is, 'we don't really know how to do that'. That's the answer you always get.
“This committee is the catalyst by which counties who have a genuine desire to see hurling and camogie develop within their counties have somewhere to go, have somebody to ask, can get advice and guidance, and finance if needed, to set up a hurling or a camogie element within their club or a new club in places where demographics allow that. That's really what this is about.
“We're going to make mistakes in this. We're going to have failures. Coming from a county that has experience plenty of that and gotten to the summit this year, we know that whenever you do finally arrive at the promised land it is a lovely place to be. You can look back on all of the challenges that you had and say, yes, we used our obstacles as stepping stones and we got to where we wanted to go.”
Lizzy Broderick of the Camogie Association and member of the Hurling Development Committee with Camogie Association president Brian Molloy during the Hurling Development Committee media event at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile.
The Hurling Development Committee is charged with not just growing the game of hurling, but camogie too.
Camogie Association President, Brian Dowling, was also in attendance at today’s press briefing in Croke Park and is hopeful that the appointment of a National Head of Hurling and the implementation of the HDC’s terms of reference can have a very positive impact.
“It is hugely important from a symbolism perspective but also a practical one the extent to which camogie is involved in this,” said Dowling.
“Lizzy Broderick, our Technical Development and Participation manager, is an active member of the committee.
“It's hugely important from a camogie perspective that we are operating in step with the GAA and with hurling in this development. There's a focus on areas like the Táin Óg and making sure that camogie gets involved in that competition.
“From my own personal perspective, I grew up in Longford in Rathcline/Lanesboro and I learned how to play hurling there. To paraphrase that well-used phrase, Longford is not a hurling stronghold. But back in the '80s there were over 20 hurling clubs as part of a development programme that was rolled out by the GAA at that point in time. It has narrowed back over time to just three or four clubs operating now.
“I see now that Rathcline have the nursery going on the hurling side of things again, just in the last year. And if you look at the pictures they have up on Facebook, about 40 to 50 per cent of the participants are girls.
“So it's hugely important that whatever we're doing in terms of hurling development around the country we're also in lock-step on the camogie side of things.
“There's a huge world of opportunity for us. I would echo Jarlath's point about the fact that this is not a short-term or one off of flash in the pan.
“This is about putting in place structures to enable every girl and every boy in the country to be given the opportunity to play our national sports, camogie, hurling, football, ladies football, no matter where you come from.
“It shouldn't be a function of what county you're in, what parish you're in, whether you get the opportunity to play camogie or football.”
For information on the National Head of Hurling role, please visit: https://www.gaa.ie/downloads/viewer/national-head-of-hurling-advert
