Down U-17 Celtic Challenge hurling team manager, Ronan Sheehan.
By Damian Lawlor
For the past number of years Ronan Sheehan has been immersed in the development of Down hurling across all levels.
Managing the Down minors has preceded his involvement as the county's Under-17 Celtic Challenge manager.
Getting the best players out to hurl and coping with club fixtures that are sometimes staggered and delayed have been frequent challenges but, this weekend, Sheehan faces a different dilemma when his adopted county takes on a team from his native county in the Bank of Ireland Celtic Challenge preliminaries.
Down will play Cork City on Saturday in a bid to get a place in the competition's quarter-final stage.
And Sheehan is relishing the prospect of hooking up with coaches from his native county.
"It's great to be playing Cork City on a personal level as my family are from Banteer in North Cork and I still travel down home regularly," he says.
"I was down in Thurles a couple of weeks ago for the Cork v Tipperary Munster SHC match and this weekend I'd be delighted to get one over the home county," he laughs.
Sheehan has been working diligently at grass-roots level trying to promote hurling in the northern county and province and in the past he has spoken about the difficult position that the game finds itself in.
But having helped to bring through impressive young Down players like Eoin Coulter, Donal Og Rooney, Daithi Sands and the talented McCrickards, Conor and Ruairi, he is still hopeful that the development work in the Mourne County will count for a lot.
"Diarmuid O'Sullivan is a close personal friend of mine as is Donal Og Cusack and both of the lads have taken this team for coaching sessions in the past. They have travelled up here on numerous occasions so that has been a huge boost.
"I have been onto to the two lads during the season and indeed Conor Lane (the leading intercounty referee) who is a cousin of mine trying to get some information on the Cork City team but they're not giving me too much!
"But this is a good group of lads we have and we are confident that they will give a good account of themselves."
Players from all the competing teams pictured at the Bank of Ireland Celtic Challenge launch.
Sheehan's team certainly did that last year when they only lost narrowly to Kilkenny South in the Division 1 semi-final.
"We have over half that team available again this year so we are hoping to go at least one better," he says.
"Here in Down we have been delighted with the Celtic Challenge over the past couple of years and indeed the support from Paudie O'Neill (Chairman of the Hurling Development Committee) in helping arrange recent challenge games with Westmeath and Dublin Plunkett.
"We won those games and now our lads really want to test themselves and the Celtic Challenge has provided that opportunity."
Overall it's a huge weekend for Down hurling.
Not only do they have the game against Cork City to look forward to but there is also the launch of their Player Pathway programme on the same day with Paudie O'Neill and National Hurling Manager Martin Fogarty both attending.
"Niall Coulter, one of our Celtic Challenge coaches, has, among others,put a lot of work into this programme which seeks to create a clear skills and physical preparation pathway for young hurlers from under-6 right through to under-21 intercounty level.
"We have over half our team this weekend from outside the traditional Ards power base in Down and the player pathway seeks to build on that work.
"We want to start to bring some of these lads through to senior inter county hurling - that is why we are so supportive of not only the Celtic Challenge but we also support Paudie's idea for a similar competition at under-20.
"We understand we may never again see a Down senior hurling team play in an All-Ireland senior semi-final but we want to be mixing with the Westmeath, Laois, Carlows, Kerrys which we are doing at underage level.
"And we believe that competitions like the Celtic challenge and our work on the player pathway creates that route map for us to challenge these teams again at senior level."
Bank of Ireland Celtic Challenge fixtures - www.gaa.ie/celticchallenge/fixtures
