The University of Galway Connacht GAA Air Dome will host the first ever official Gaelic games Integrated 7's tournament on November 20th.
By John Harrington
Connacht GAA in partnership with ATU Sport Galway will host the first ever official Integration 7’s Gaelic games tournament, featuring teams made up of both female and male players, at the University of Galway Connacht GAA Air Dome on November 20th.
Four Galway second-level schools will compete in the hurling/camogie tournament with four schools from the remaining four Connacht counties, Sligo, Roscommon, Leitrim, and Mayo competing in the football tournament.
Each school will be represented by panels of 10 players each made up of five male and five female Transition Year students. During play each team must field four females and three males.
Integration and joined up thinking will be evident off the pitch as well as on it.
The tournament will be run by ATU Galway second year BSc Event Management students and participants in the Gort CS TY Future Leaders programme.
ATU Galway third year BSc Coaching Science students will also be involved as part of their Performance Analysis for Coaches module and will showcase their analysis equipment and processes to the TY students.
The history-making tournament is the brainchild of ATU Galway’s GAA Development Manager, Damien Coleman, who hopes it will show how integration can work in a novel, real-life setting.
“Integration is a big topic now in Gaelic games and we’re all talking about the three F's, the fixtures, the facilities, and the finance, but we thought we’d go a different route through a games-based project and try to grow it from the bottom up with this concept,” Coleman told GAA.ie
“I’m working in cooperation with ATU Galway’s Sports Development Officer, Molly Dunne, and we felt that this would be a great opportunity to develop external partnerships for the College.
“We hope this will be a project that schools will want to be part of in the future again and it makes sense to link the post primary school sector with the third level sector where the students will eventually be going anyway.
“We have four post primary schools in Galway invited for the hurling/camogie Integrated 7's - Portumna Community School, Claregalway Community College, Gort Community School, and St. Brigid's Vocational Loughrea.
“And to make it a truly provincial project in partnership with Connacht GAA we have post primary schools from the four other Connacht counties counties – Boyle Community College, Ballinamore Community School, Enniscrone Community College, and Ballyhaunis Community College – taking part in the football Integrated 7s.”
ATU Galway’s GAA Development Manager, Damien Coleman.
ATU Galway Sport Development Officer, Molly Dunne, believes the Integrated 7’s pilot programme will be both a great exercise in collaboration as well as a practical learning opportunity for both the second and third level students involved.
“ATU recently launched a new strategy and this project and collaboration, inclusion, and innovation are three of the key areas in it and this project includes all of those elements,” Dunne told GAA.ie.
“You have collaboration between the College and Connacht GAA and also collaboration between the secondary school and third level students who are really driving it.
“It's innovative in so far as it is a new concept in Gaelic games and the students who are driving this blitz have new ideas and will be using new technology and they're really taking the lead on this. Then there's the link with the TY students in Gort Community School, so you also have their ideas about what they thought might be fun and inclusive for their students.
“While ATU and Connacht GAA are linked with this project, it's certainly being driven by the second school and third-level students.
“It's a really practical opportunity for our students. When the idea was broached to our Event Management and Sports Science staff here they jumped at it. The Sports Science students have a practical side where they can use it for their performance analysis and are getting exposed to being in an environment where they can record and analyse a game as a real practical learning tool.
“And then obviously it falls so well in with our Event Management class as well, they're getting that real exposure to organising an event. Yes, they have that support and assistance of Damien Coleman and Connacht GAA, but it'll very much be a hands-on experience for them of running an event of this level and the first of its kind which has huge practical learning for them.”
ATU Galway Sport Development Officer, Molly Dunne.
Dunne also sees great potential for Integrated Gaelic games to become a vibrant outlet for recreational participation in much the same way as tag rugby is for that sport.
“It's very much inclusive in so far as the mix of males and females, but also inclusive in so far it's aimed at the recreational player,” she says.
“We see it as a pilot for those people who want to try out GAA for the first time or who stepped away from it and want to come back to it. This is just something different for them.
“Tag rugby is huge here in the college and even our boxing and archery clubs would train together, males and females. It's a niche that's maybe being missed out on in Gaelic games and only because it hasn't been tried yet.
“We hope that in the second semester of this college year we'll run it here in the ATU campus as part of an integration blitz across a number of sports, not just GAA. So this Integrated 7’s tournament on November 20 is a pilot for that as well.”