NATIONAL HURLING DEVELOPMENT PLAN:YESTERDAY'S LAUNCH of the GAA's National Hurling Development Plan at Croke Park was described by president-elect Liam O'Neill, who chaired the Hurling Development Committee, as "one of the most significant days for hurling and camogie in the history of the association".

O’Neill explained that he had asked permission of GAA president Christy Cooney at the beginning of his term of office to set up a subcommittee of the Games Development Committee, to focus on hurling and which would serve as the Hurling Development Committee.

He said he had been guided by his experience in Leinster where he was involved in devising a similar plan for hurling in the province on taking over as provincial chair but that he had regretted no longer being able to make an input after the conclusion of his term of office.

Yesterday’s plan has been devised for the past three years and O’Neill said that he will maintain it as a priority area when his presidency commences in two months.

It is deliberately a bottom-up plan, seeking to extend the reach of the game and encourage development structures with an emphasis on skills as well as providing enhanced playing schedules for players in all counties. It is also proposed to focus support services on a number of counties below the top level of the intercounty game.

Citing the precedent of the 2002 Strategic Review Committee, which first proposed targeting counties “which hadn’t been particularly successful in the past 50 years”, Pat Daly, secretary of the committee, said that the project counties would be Antrim, Laois, Down, Carlow, Westmeath and Kerry, all of whom would be funded in their use of the new hurling development centre, to be established in Waterford IT.

The biggest initiative so far has been the roll-out of the Táin League, which is currently in progress and provides an ambitious intercounty club competition for 13 counties, the nine in Ulster plus Leitrim, Sligo, Louth and Longford.

“This is a hurling plan,” according to O’Neill. “We looked at the nine developing counties (those in the Táin League minus Antrim, Down, Derry and Armagh) and the clubs in those counties. We couldn’t believe by how thin a thread hurling is hanging in some of those counties . . . and we said that we have to develop the club hurling.

“I think that is one of the most significant things to happen in the history of the organisation. To answer your question, we now have a situation where we have 13-county, 60-team conglomerate with the imprimatur of Central Council that no fixture can be made against them. If someone told me five years ago that you would get in the nine developing counties to a situation where that could he bought about, you would have said that this was crazy.

“Our part ends in June but the whole summer is there for counties to organise, as they are doing now anyway, to organise their own county leagues and county championships. We have now provided a platform where players are ready for hurling.”

One of the initiatives in the plan sees mentors appointed to 22 counties. There are some big names amongst them, including Tipperary’s 2010 All-Ireland-winning manager Liam Sheedy and the team’s coach Eamon O’Shea. O’Neill was at pains to point out that they will operate in a wide-ranging advisory role.

“It’s important to note that they are not coaches. Liam Sheedy going to Tyrone, his job will be to sit down with hurling people – whether that’s the county board or a hurling board I’m not sure – and examine how hurling is run in the county, see how it’s organised at adult level, at youth level, at child level, and say, ‘look, this could be done differently’.”

O’Neill, a school principal, compared the task of securing hurling with the efforts to revive the Irish language.

“We’ve had money thrown at the Irish language over the generations, bad efforts made at schooling as well and we did the same with hurling. It’s been all about throwing money. This is a change – we’re getting buy-in from people and this is people-based. You can see that it’s about games first.

“We set our stall out with the Táin league – this is about games, about getting hurling played.”

The issue of how willingly football and administrators in football-orientated counties will accommodate the plan was raised but O’Neill and Daly both said that this hadn’t been an issue.

“For example in Cavan, Monday and Wednesday nights are hurling only nights and there can’t be any interference,” explained Daly. “These are small but welcome developments and we’ll get them to work across the country.”

The consensus view was that having separate hurling boards constituted a failed strategy, as it had led to ghettoising the game.

“The history of hurling boards hasn’t been a good history,” said Daly. “In counties where we have had hurling boards it hasn’t worked out well. All of the indications are if we went back down that road we wouldn’t be making progress. The reality is that both games have to work together and it’s a case of we can best do that with regard for the varying strands. That’s a challenge.”

Daly also outlined the metric by which the success of the plan could be assessed.

“Progress can be measured in a number of different ways. The quantitative measure is how many people are playing. Qualitatively you can see at what level they are playing. Last week we saw Loughgiel beating the Munster champions, we saw Mount Leinster Rangers winning an All-Ireland intermediate championship against an Armagh team. That’s progress, that teams from those counties are contesting finals, whatever way you look at it.

“That’s happening because there’s a lot of good, hard work going on. When I was speaking earlier on I said people say that three teams are competing for the All-Ireland title and hurling is not going well. But there were never as many people playing hurling and we are creating a mechanism whereby anyone can play hurling regardless of where they are born.”

NATIONAL HURLING DEVELOPMENT PLAN

Counties categorised into tiers, based on their intercounty championship level: Tier 1 (MacCarthy Cup) to Tier 4 (Meagher Tournament). Plan focused on strengthening the game from foundations upwards.

The introduction of the Táin adult club hurling league to provide a meaningful programme of matches on a regular basis for adult club players in the 13 developing counties (the nine in Ulster plus Leitrim, Sligo, Louth and Longford).

The establishment of a National Hurling and Camogie Development Centre in the Waterford Institute of Technology Sports Campus and the funded provision of its sports science supports to six counties – Antrim, Down, Carlow, Laois, Westmeath and Kerry.

Promotion of the games-based approach to training and development (the Coach 10 model) Appointment and deployment of hurling mentors as part of a support team who will collaborate with county boards and provide guidance to team managers and coaches involved with underage and adult county teams to maximise participation and optimise performance.

Undertake a research study as part of an overall project to facilitate "Change Management" (the process of managing organisational evolution through a changing social environment) in a development context.

Hurling Mentors: Seán Silke (Roscommon), Shane McClearn (Leitrim), Jeffrey Lynskey (Mayo), Damien Curley (Sligo), Jim Ryan (Carlow), Paudie O'Neill (Kildare), Tommy Naughton (Louth), Paddy Kelly (Louth), Michael Kinsella (Wicklow), Michael Duignan (Longford), Brendan O'Sullivan (Meath), Noel O'Sullivan (Meath), Paudie Butler (Westmeath and Laois), Dermot Healy (Offaly), Eamonn Ryan (Kerry), Liam Sheedy (Tyrone), Eamon O'Shea (Donegal), Ben Dorney (Down), Michael O'Grady (Derry), Humphrey Kelleher (Armagh), Morgan Lawlor (Monaghan), Pat Culhane (Cavan), Peter Horgan (Fermanagh), Joe Dooley (Antrim).

Hurling Development Committee: Liam O'Neill (chair and GAA president-elect), John Fenton (Cork), Seán Silke (Galway), Dr John McSparran (Antrim), Mary O'Connor (Camogie Association), Jimmy D'Arcy (manager, Croke Park) and Pat Daly (secretary, Croke Park).