Coiste Oiliúna Report to Convention 2012
Brendán O Drisceoil, Oifigeach Oiliúna (Coaching Officer)

Is mór an onóir dom mo thuarisc ar son Choiste Oilinúa a chur os comhair Cómhdháil Coiste Chontae Chorcaí 2012.
It gives me great pleasure to submit my report on behalf of Coiste OiliÚna to the Cork County Convention 2012.
During January and early February, I met with Club Coaching Officers in all the Divisions. My aim was to initiate personal contact between clubs and Oifigeach OiliÚna and generate discussion and feedback on the
• Role of the Club Coaching Officer.
• Coaching structures in the Clubs.
• Club School Links and Primary School Support.
• Post Primary Schools Support.
• Divisional Squads
• Coaching Website and Coaching Material.

Coiste Oiliúna, as per the Cork GAA Strategic Vision and Action Plan 2010 - 2015, plans to have an active Coaching Officer and a Club Coaching Plan in place in all clubs by 2015. To achieve this, Coiste OiliÚna has been assisting clubs by rolling out a Club Nursery Programme around the county. The aim of this programme is to create proper club nursery coaching structures and to improve the quality of coaching in the clubs. The GDA (Games Development Administrator) for that region would be working with the clubs in setting this up.

On November 3rd, a Cork Coaching Workshop was held in the Oriel House. A presentation from Damien Young, Drom & Inch H&F club, Co Tipperary on developing a Physical Development programme for U6 - U16. Pat Moore, Abbeyside H&F club, Co Waterford and John O Loughlin, St Bridgets H&F club in Co Dublin both demonstrated how their clubs have set up the post of Coaching Officer and how they have developed and implemented a structured coaching plan. There was a large attendance from clubs and we envisage this will provide the spring board for clubs to set up their own plans.

Coiste Oiliúna intends to follow up by providing workshops in regional centers in the coming months.

There has never been so many clubs helping out in their local Primary Schools, thanks to the Club School Link network set up by the GDA's. In 2012, 200 schools around the county have received coaching at a primary level. In west Cork, there are 70 schools completing a 10 week coaching programme under the guidance of James McCarthy and Noel Crowley.

To support these initiatives, Coiste Oiliúna have recently trained and upskilled existing Club Schools Link Coaches at a workshop in Sprioaid Nioamh School in Bishopstown. The workshop also marked the launch of the Primary Schools Coaching Booklet. This booklet is available to all club school link coaches and clubs. It provides 18 practical sessions in both hurling and football.
With the up skilling and the availability of the Coaching Booklet, we have now got a structured and co-ordinated programme of GAA activities in schools, presented by qualified and trained coaches.
The GDA's will visit the schools on a regular basis.
• Their role is to communicate with the Club School Link Coaches on any difficulties they may have experienced.
• To ensure that there is a coaching programme for each specific age group.
• To communicate with the School Principal, ensuring that the school's expectation of the Coach, the standard of coaching and the presence of the GAA in the school is of the highest standard.

It is important that we, at County Board level and National Level recognize the increasing difficulties that the Post Primary Schools sector is facing. The economic uncertainty, resulting in the loss of teaching positions, extra classes, loss of previously available free time, for example. Also the difficulties that are within our own Association, these being ,fixture and training clashes, lack of communication between club and school, difficulty in getting pitches for College games are others.
Coiste Oiliúna (Coaching Body) will be supporting and implementing the recommendations of the Post Primary School Strategy plan that was launched during the year. These will include;
• Supporting and organising a Liaison officer between the local clubs and school, that will improve communication between club and school coaches, avoiding training clashes and to coordinate these sessions to the needs of the players
• Recognition to clubs who make their pitches available to College Games.
• More matches/blitzes for the students,ie. Super Touch Blitz, at present for 1st years, progress to 2nd years and possible 4th/5th years
• Award 1 and Foundation Certification courses made available to 2nd level teachers.
• More GAA transition year courses to introduce students to the coaching and administration side of the GAA
• Continued lobbying of the Government to have Coaching recognized as a component of the 33 extra hours under the Croke Park Agreement.
• Increasing the number of coaches and coaching hours in assisting teachers in preparing their teams for College competitions. Coiste OilinÚa is a present coaching in Cobh, Midleton CBS, Fermoy x 2, Carrignavar, De le Salle, Carrigaline C.S, Hamilton, Mon AG, Rochestown, Coachford.

There has been and still is a huge demand for our Coach Education Coaching Courses. Coiste Oiliúna has provided Foundation Courses and Award 1 Children and Award 1 Youths in both hurling and football throughout the county in 2012. It is vital that our coaching personnel are properly qualified to teach the skills to our players in a competent and safe environment. The target of each club having a minimum of 5 Foundation Level Coaches has been reached and now we are setting our targets on each club to have a least one Foundation Level coach with every team in their club. Setting the bar even higher, Coiste Oiliuna will be striving for and assisting clubs to have an Award 1 coach with each team from U14 - U18.
Coiste Oiliúna will continue to provide these courses for clubs/divisions/club coaches in 2013.
• We will be up skilling our Tutors in their presentation skills and will have continuous evaluation of these Tutors so that the correct presentation is delivered and that there is uniformity of presentation of the different courses.
• A calendar of courses with dates and venues will be provided in advance.
• Coaching Clinics and workshops to follow these courses in Clubs and regional venues.
• Workshops on physical development will be presented in regional venues, where coaches will be educated through basic exercises to incorporate in their training programme.
• Workshops on skill development will also be presented in the same format as the physical development workshops.

We would ask clubs to try and ensure that people taking Foundation courses are brought in and involved in coaching at some level. For Award 1 courses, clubs to identify promising people for future development as coaches, i.e Rebel Og squads, County development squads, senior/ adult teams in the club.
However I feel that the Coach Education structure in Cork needs to be more streamlined. We have, as mentioned before, a huge amount of courses being presented, with no concrete information on how many qualified coaches go on to participate in their own club's coaching programme. Through regular communication between clubs and GDA's, data will be collected on who is coaching in the clubs, what teams are they coaching, so that standard and structure can be monitored and improved. This, resulting in, instead of "everybody "doing these courses, Clubs would be more aware of their own needs, can identify and put forward the people that would be of most benefit to their own coaching programmes.

Kellogs became the new sponsor for Cul Camps in 2012. A new design and colour has made the gear for the children very attractive and it brought a splash of colour to the camps.
The Cul Camps have been a huge success story with numbers participating in Cork County at approx 9,500 this year. Coiste Oiliúna provides workshops that upskill and prepare qualified (min; foundation level) to coach in these Cul Camps
To maintain and increase the numbers in the Cul camps, we need, at both County and National Level, to explore more avenues to make these camps more attractive for the prospective child and parents.
I would like to see a calendar of activities with a list of skills, that would be included in the camp. I acknowledge that the Cul Camps have to be fun orientated, but I feel that the content can be improved so that at the end of the week, the parent can see that certain skills were taught and achieved by the children.

There is a huge volume of coaching happening in the Third Level Institutions. I am not solely referring to the Fitzgibbon or Sigerson teams, but to all the Fresher, Intermediate and Junior teams, where there is a high standard of coaching given to them. Most of these team are being run by the students, who are of Foundation and or Award 1 level. The Colleges and the Institutes have been very pro active in the running of coach education courses. A huge appreciation and thanks to Keith Ricken of CIT and John Grainger of UCC for the massive amount of work they do in the running and promotion of our games, both inside and outside the colleges.

During the year, Coiste Oiliúna relaunched their Coaching Link on the Cork GAA website. We will be updating the content at more regular intervals in 2013. Coaching articles, Video Links, Drills, Nursery skills and games, games based activities; together with calendars of Coach Education Courses and workshops will be included. I would like to extend a special thanks to our PRO, Tracey Kennedy for the huge amount of work she did.
"Coaching Corner" was produced for a six week trial period on Thursday nights Evening Echo. These articles contained coaching topics, coaching drills, conditioned games. "Coaching Corner" will again be published early in the New Year.
This year also marked the appearance of a Coiste OiliÚna Coaching Page on match programmes for games in P Ui Chaoimh and P Ui Rinn. These pages contained coaching advice, articles, games and drills.
Coiste Oilinúa's aim is to bring as much coaching information and material as possible to the club coaches and anybody else interested in coaching. I would welcome feedback from everybody so that the Coaching Website, "coaching corner" and our coaching page will produce what you the coaches are looking for.

I want to express my thanks to the GDA's, Paudie O Brien, Brian Murphy, Martin Coleman, Kevin O Donovan, Paudie Kissane, GPO Noel Crowley together with Games Manager Kevin O Callaghan for all the work that they are doing. It must be noted that we, as a county are grossly understaffed on a pro rata basis compared with other counties. While we are attending to all aspects of games development, we must accept that we are just scratching the surface in terms of the work that could be done with greater man power on the ground. The number of clubs and the geographical size of the county demand a huge work load and time. It is to the credit of these GDA's, GPO and Games Manager Kevin O Callaghan that the amount of Blitzes, coaching in Primary Schools, Coach Education, workshops are increasing every year.
I want to thank my fellow officers in An Choiste Bainisti for all the advice and support throughout the year. A special thanks to Tommy Lynch, a "Legend". And a Mile Buiochas to Mairead and Barbara in the Office for their assistance, patience and help, which was always forthcoming.

Breandán Ó Drisceoil