Donegal's support for both codes an example for others

By John Harrington

If hurling is to significantly grow its participation numbers in the developing counties then good intentions will need to be followed up by meaningful action.

Donegal are one county setting a very good example in this regard.

Last November they published a five-point plan for urgent hurling development in the county and they’ve already made very good headway in implementing it.

Top of their list of immediate goals was the appointment of a Hurling Academy Head for the county, and earlier this month that box was ticked when former county hurler, Sean McVeigh was installed in the role.

As well as being hugely respected in the county for his long and successful inter-county career, McVeigh also holds a Masters in High Performance Sport and is employed by sports tech company Kinetik IQ who provide and analyse data for Premier League, American Football and Major League Baseball teams.

His newly created position is effectively the hurling equivalent of Karl Lacey’s football role with the Donegal academy, and underlines the county’s determination to promote both codes equally under Chairperson Mary Coughlan.

“Once we got the Football Academy up and running, our emphasis then was on hurling, and it's fantastic that we have appointed someone of the calibre of Sean," Coughlan told GAA.ie.

“His experience as a hurler, the fact that he's from the county, his superb academic qualifications, the fact that he works in the field of sport within his other positions, all make him a very fine candidate.

“He's highly regarded within the Donegal hurling community and that’s important in order to bring people with you.

“We just really want to make sure that there's equal recognition for hurling as well as football, even though we would be stronger at football."

For Donegal GAA Hurling Officer, Cormac Hartnett, the appointment of McVeigh is an important milestone in the development of the game in the county and underlines the county board’s commitment to growing the game.

“It's important when you get to summits, and I know there are many more summits to come, but it's important to look back and just see how far you've come and who's been responsible or helpful or supportive in getting you to that point,” Hartnett told GAA.ie.

“We've never had a Head of Hurling in Donegal before and it will probably unearth a lot of things that need to be rectified or need to be addressed or need to be resourced, which may lead to further development or further vying for a little bit more space or resources, but that's what you need.

“In Sean we now have somebody centrally in charge and who has great experience in sports, both as a player and as someone who's professionally involved through his own company with professional teams.

“To have somebody with an academic background, that level of experience, and practical experience as a county player and as a dual player is fantastic.

“No doubt he'll shake the carpet a lot and he'll come up with plans and I know his initial plans are coaching pathways and player pathways within the Academy system and I know he's made substantial inroads into that already.

“It's great to have somebody who has that level of ability and competence and who's now already stuck into it.

“To have gotten to this point we have to recognize our board, particularly our chairperson, and we have to recognize our hurling sub-committee.

“And we have to also have to recognize the GAA’s Head of Hurling, Willie Maher, who physically travelled to Donegal to support our five-point plan. Top of that plan was the appointment of a Hurling Officer. So that one is ticked.”

Significant progress has also been already made on the other four points in the Donegal GAA Hurling Development Plan:

• Development of club-school links.
• Implementing dual county nursery policy in all clubs.
• A three-phase support for the seven new hurling units that were established in 2025.
• New support for existing clubs, particularly at Go games level.

The appointment of McVeigh will only serve to accelerate the work in those areas.

“Yes, we're making great strides,” says Hartnett. “There's an awful lot to do but you always have to be cognizant of the fact that we don't need equality, we just need equity. We don't need the same as football. We don't need to be on the same level of participation as football.

“We don't need necessarily the same resources as football but we need all of those resources that we need in terms of the development of our code, our part of the GAA in Donegal, and we're getting that at the moment and it's step by step by step.”

The Donegal senior hurling team has been very competitive in recent years and will contest another national final on Saturday when they play Wicklow in the Allianz Hurling League Division 3 Final.

How much further progress can the county make up through the hurling ranks in the coming years if the game continues to receive the level of support it now does?

“I played for Donegal in the late 90s and I think we were ranked 31st in Ireland or possibly even 32^nd, whereas we’ll be in the third tier of five league divisions next year so that makes us mid-table which is great progress," says Hartnett.

“Now obviously as you go further up the more resources, the more development you need even to go up a notch or two within a division is more and more difficult.

“It's easy to fly up the divisions from Division 4 up to Division 3 up to Division 2. But Division 2 is a very, very, very competitive division.

“The resources and the needs that will be necessary to compete well in that division and to stay in that division and to try and climb up that division would be significant.

“I think that in itself would be maybe a 3, 4, 5 year plan to sort of get well dug into that division.

“And that will be a challenge because the senior team in Donegal is in somewhat of a transition and I think this year people thought that the transition might be too much for promotion.

“But that hasn't happened and Mickey McCann deserves great credit for that as do the whole management team and squad because they have got promoted back up to Division 2 and people thought that maybe with some of the panel getting a little bit older and some of the panel maybe inevitably falling away that this might be a step too far this year.

“We have a lot of work to do in the underage structure to backfill to make sure that there are four or five players coming through every year into that senior panel to keep that going.

“That was one of the things that we forecasted as a difficulty because our underage structure over the last couple of years rather than improving had dis-improved. So that's one of the reasons why the Academy Head of Hurling is so necessary so that we can concentrate on the player pathway and concentrate on the coaching pathway to make sure that we are getting the best players, can larger levels of participation at that higher level, and excellent coaching for them so that we can keep that progression at senior level going.

“Am I optimistic? Look, I think there might be a little bit of yo-yoing for a while but I think we can dig into Division 2 and I think we can stay there.

“And, similarly, in the Christy Ring I would hope that we can dig into that too and stay there. But we have a little bit of work to do at underage to supplement the senior team and we have had some difficulties over the last number of years with underage and we're trying to address that now.”

Donegal are one of three counties along with Kerry and Cork who will contest League Finals this year in both football and hurling, and competing successfully on both fronts is something they’re rightfully proud of.

“You would love the ultimate which would be two pieces of silverware coming back up the road,” says Mary Coughlan.

“The fact that we're in two finals first of all is fantastic, a great achievement for both sets of men.

“We've had just fantastic support this year for the footballers and I'd like to see more support for our hurlers into the future with more people attending their matches, especially children. That’s something we’d really like to achieve.

"But, look, a weekend like this is great for Donegal. It's great for all the work that's put in by the board, by the county committee, and by all the teams and all the supporters, because it takes an awful lot of hard work to get anywhere.

“Hopefully it’ll be an enjoyable and safe weekend for everybody.”