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Leinster Council use Kilkenny hurling expertise to help weaker counties

Leinster Council Chairman John Horan

Leinster Council Chairman John Horan

Leinster Council Chairman John Horan has revealed how Kilkenny are using their hurling know-how to help improve the standard of the game in Offaly, Carlow, Laois, and Westmeath.

Those four counties are all benefiting from the €1 million in funding that was set aside at the 2014 Annual Congress to help them develop the game of hurling in their counties. And in order to ensure that the funds are used in the best way possible, Horan has enlisted two of the sharpest minds in Kilkenny hurling to help spearhead the scheme – current Kilkenny senior team trainer Michael Dempsey and former Kilkenny manager and GAA President Nickey Brennan.

“When Liam O'Neill announced at Congress that there was a million involved, I approached Paraic Duffy,” said Horan at the launch of the Leinster GAA Provincial Senior Championships at The Pearse Museum in Rathfarnham, Dublin.

“I said could we put a committee in place to supervise the spending in Carlow, Laois, Westmeath, and then Offaly were brought into it as a fourth. We were being realistic as to where Offaly were at the time. With those four counties in place, we got Nickey Brennan, Shane Flanagan (Leinster’s Games Development and Structures manager, and Michael Dempsey, who trains Kilkenny, to come on board. Those lads were volunteers, and they have worked with the Leinster Council to put a report together.

“It is going to be interesting when it is published because they monitor every aspect of every spend in the counties in terms of facilities and strength and conditioning, in terms of training methodologies and conditioning. In fairness Kilkenny gave their time to spread what they did in terms of their preparation and background work.

“They came to Portlaoise and met all the officers from the respective four counties to tell them how they go about it. Some people were quite shocked by Kilkenny's physio, doctor, and nutritionist availability. Then as someone said afterwards Kilkenny don't spend their money on management teams, they spend it on the professionals to bring in to support the players. Maybe that is a model some counties should follow going forward.

“It actually helps counties when there is an extra bit of governance. There is a balance balancing the pressure with the manager and those involved with the team looking for money to spend their way. It is probably a support to the county officers in that they are able to say we are being supervised and monitored.”

Michael Dempsey

Michael Dempsey

Westmeath’s impressive 2-22 to 1-11 victory over Offaly in Sunday’s Round Robin stage of the Leinster SHC is timely proof of just how much progress a county can make if it works hard and invests wisely. Westmeath have been very proactive when it comes to underage hurling coaching in recent years, and that’s why Horan was not all that surprised by their victory over their fellow Midlanders.

“That shouldn't be as big a shock because if people had been watching what is going on they've had good minor teams coming through, they've run Dublin very close in a few Championships,” he said. “They have a good strong backroom team there with Michael Ryan and Michael Walsh, Ollie's son, Tom Carr is the strength and conditioning coach. They have people there who know and understand the game very well.  That is the product we saw on the pitch last Sunday. They arrived there with massive determination, playing against the wind they were five points up at half-time. They gave 110 per cent.”

Shocks have been few and far between in the Leinster Senior Championships in recent years with Dublin and Kilkenny establishing themselves as the two heavyweights of the province in football and hurling respectively. Though the fact that Dublin will have to play outside Croke Park in Championship football for the first time since 2006 when they face the winners of Laois and Wicklow at Nowlan Park in Kilkenny on June 4 should at least add a dash of spice to the football championship.

“Everybody is talking about getting Dublin out of Croke Park,” said Horan. “It hasn't happened for 10 years. A lot of those decisions were made on a financial basis so obviously when we were taking them out we looked at the previous year in Croke Park 33,000 were at Dublin's first match. There is a capacity of 28,000 in Nowlan Park.

“If you look at the most recent matches in Thurles everyone goes to both stands there. The terraces are quite empty, that is the way the modern GAA supporter has gone, they want seating facilities. Two years ago when we had a debate about bringing Dublin out of Croke Park to Portlaoise there was only two votes in favour of taking them out, they were the two Laois votes. I would look at this as a staged process.”