Youth Coaching Officer – a challenging yet rewarding position.

Cathal – the youngest of the Mc Erlean Family was destined to become a well known name within the hurling community of Dungannon, Tyrone and beyond.

He observed his brothers from the sideline as a teenager, enjoying the glory days when the Benburb cup was drapped in Red and White during the 1990’s.

Even as a teenager, no doubt he was thinking how can we do things better next year, how can we progress to the next level?

He joined the Senior squad, still in his teens in 1999.

A year later, Cathal agreed to become Youth Coaching Officer, taking over from Eamon Skelton who had done a mighty job to then.

A Growing Town – A Growing Club.

Our Youth Grades were a lot different prior to 2001.

The old structure of U14, U16, Minor Championship and League had been the focal point for years.

There was very little competition outside of the County, apart from the few challenge games we could muster from friends in Clubs throughout Armagh and Derry.

During the early noughties, our U12’s was the youngest age group in action, co – ordinated by Padraig Devlin.

This age group had a variety of Children of ages from 8 upwards.

As you could imagine this was a lot of Children with a big deviation in skill level.

An U10 age group was created to allow a more focused approach to be delivered separately to U12’s and U10’s.

Then the same issue arise with the U10 age group, with Children as young as 6 wishing to play our beloved game.

So now our youngest age group is our U6’s known as our Booster Seat Brigade.

In Safe Hands!

In years previous, 4/6 individuals would have been sufficient to deliver our Youth Coaching strategy.

Now the dilemma is to arrange sufficient Coaches per ratio of Children being coached.

Organise Youth training indoors during the winter months and outdoors during the busy summer schedule of training on our pitch and interview new applicants who wish to become a Club Youth Coach.

Liaising with our Club Children’s Officer we ensure all our Coaches have completed.

Foundation Coaching for Children.
Be Access NI Vetted.
Completed Safeguarding 1 for Coaching Children.

Consequently, you the parent can be fully confident that our Club will put the interest of your Child first at all times.

The Next Stage.

Now we have all our age groups, trained weekly by eager Coaches who see their skills progress from session to session.

The challenge is to arrange games for them to see how they perform against children of similar age groups from other localities.

Thankfully we have the Tyrone Go Games Strategy in place for ages groups 12 and under.

We also have built up wonderful relationships with Clubs not only throughout Ulster but the entire Country, who warmly welcome us yearly to participate in tournaments, coaching and challenge games.

Thankfully the kids can enjoy at least 20 of theses games throughout the year.

We also have away day activities, which the kids really enjoy.

None more so than trips to Croke Park to see household names such as TJ Reid and Aaron Gillane play at the business end of the All Ireland Hurling Championship.