Down manager Conor Laverty speaks to his players ahead of the 2023 Tailteann Cup Final match between Down and Meath at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Daire Brennan/Sportsfile
By John Harrington
This is a good week for Down football.
Their senior team play Westmeath in the Allianz Football League Division 3 Final on Saturday, and earlier in the day their minors play Derry in the Ulster League Final.
A good chunk of their senior panel are graduates of either the 2021 or 2023 Ulster Championship winning U20 panels, which is a strong endorsement of the good work being done to nurture young talent in the county by both clubs and Academy squads.
The rising graph in this regard can arguably be traced back to a consultative review that Down GAA undertook 10 years ago which polled the opinions of players, schools, clubs, and coaches who had a vested interest in Down football.
The report that came from that review was produced by David Passmore, then a senior lecturer in Coaching Science and Education in DCU and now the Head Coach of the USA National Women’s Field Hockey team.
It in turn led to the establishment of the Mourne Academy Steering Committee in 2015, chaired by 1991 All Ireland winning captain, Paddy O’Rourke, which overhauled the county’s underage development squads that have since produced a generation of players that are now playing senior inter-county football.
All of which was timely work done after a dawning realisation that tradition was no longer a precursor to success.
In fact, the county’s status as one of the blue bloods of Gaelic football had arguably led to complacency that saw them left behind by many of their peers provincially as well as nationally.
And despite the green shoots that we’re now seeing in Down football, no-one involved in Coaching and Games Development in the Mourne County is slapping themselves on the back just yet.
Down GAA Coaching and Games Development Manager, Conor O’Toole, accepts there’s a huge body of work still to be done, in part because the county took its eye off the ball for a period of time.
“I think that's probably a fair comment,” he says. “We've been fortunate that generally we've always produced what we would consider to be talented footballers and talented hurlers.
“But it's a cliche now to say that talent is not enough. Talent is a small part of a big picture now in terms of preparing teams to play at an elite level whether it's football, hurling, camogie, ladies football, whatever the case may be.
“All the add-ons that are associated with county teams and county player preparation now, those are probably the areas that we dropped the ball perhaps a wee bit on. Thankfully in recent times we have begun to address this.
"Over the past 2 or 3 years, we have entered into a partnership with BÍA Support from Belfast who now take care of all our squads Athletic Development requirements in Hurling and Football from u15 to u20. They also work with our Senior Hurlers. That level of continuity simply didn’t exist prior to this.
Down manager Conor Laverty, right, and coach Ciaran Meenagh before the Allianz Football League Division 3 match between Westmeath and Down at TEG Cusack Park in Mullingar, Westmeath. Photo by Seb Daly/Sportsfile
"Conor Laverty has put together a superb management team with the senior footballers, all of whom are willing to help in any way they can, whether its delivering coach education workshops, delivering sessions for Talent Academy Squads, et cetera. Conor himself was hands on as a coach with the talent academy squads prior to his appointment as under 20 manager, four years ago.
"Add to that the quality of people we have within hurling circles, and you begin to realise that things aren’t all bad!
"Our senior urling Manager, Ronan Sheehan, is the first man to offer to support the Hurling Academy Squads, and Ronan was central to the delivery of the 'Be Better' Hurling initiative which the county has run over the winter months for U13-U15 club players.
“We were over-reliant perhaps on tradition to a certain extent and probably over-reliant on a belief that we would always be there or there abouts, and, slowly but surely, we probably found that we weren't there or there abouts.
"Our tradition and our past successes are a huge part of what Down GAA is about, and we never want to forget that, but in our case, tradition dictates that we should be competing at the very highest level and for too long now we simply haven’t been doing that.
“We would be the first people to acknowledge that we haven't sufficiently invested in Coaching and Games and Player Development. That would be acknowledged fairly openly in the County’s new Strategic Plan 'Ag Bogadg Ar Aghaidh Le Chéile' which was published last November and covers 2023 to 2026.
“That's something that’s aligned to the new funding model in Coaching and Games at national level that we would be looking to correct and put right."
The Gaelic Games Coach Pathway.
Down GAA's new strategic plan puts a strong focus on Coaching and Games in the county at all stages of the Player Pathway and Coach Pathway.
“The three main strands from a coaching and games perspective we will be investing in as part of our new Strategic Plan are our clubs, schools, and our player development pathways," says O'Toole.
"We plan to overhaul our coaching infrastructure, developing a Coaching and Games unit that focuses on supporting our two priority areas of participation and talent.
"Our participation strand will aim to support schools, both primary and second level, and clubs with the promotion and delivery of Gaelic Games, from grassroots through to youth and adult level.
"The talent strand of our focus then will be on creating an environment within Down, where players and coaches alike have a clear and defined pathway that enables them to compete at the very highest levels within our games”.
“We're grateful that a new stream of funding has become available and it's an improvement on what we would have been receiving previously. Our plan is certainly to invest in that and utilise that money to the best of our abilities.
“We have a deadline of the 31st of March to submit plans to Croke Park for a couple of special projects we're hoping to deliver over the next 12 to 24 months. We're excited at the prospect of doing that and being able to inform our clubs and schools and roll those out with them.”
Success in Gaelic games is more than just a numbers game, but it’s impossible to ignore the potential that a county like Down has.
It’s the fourth most populous county in the country after Dublin, Cork, and Antrim, and it’s the intention of Down GAA in the coming years to put a particular focus on developing Gaelic games in the county’s urban areas.
Growth seems to be happening organically in Belfast where clubs like Bredagh and Carryduff are booming, St. Paul’s Holywood are tracking an upward curve, and East Belfast GAA are quickly laying the foundations for a very bright future.
Carryduff captain Aodhán McEvoy lifts the trophy after his side's victory in the Division one shield final at the John West Féile Peile na nÓg Finals 2023 at the Connacht GAA Centre of Excellence in Bekan, Mayo. Photo by Stephen Marken/Sportsfile
Down GAA have plans to further fan those flames and are also going to put a big emphasis on reinvigorating Gaelic games in Newry, which doesn’t come close to punching its weight for a town of its size.
“Traditionally we have had three really urban Newry clubs in Mitchels, St. John Bosco, and Newry Shamrocks,” says O’Toole.
“The Mitchels club has nearly gone into extinction over the last 10 to 15 years and we're hoping to revitalise that.
“St. John Bosco and Newry Shamrocks have been relatively competitive at underage level but they're not competing in Division1 in the All County Adult Football Leagues.
“Newry wouldn't be continuously represented on our county teams the way that a large urban area should be. As part of our investment with the new funding model the regeneration of the GAA in Newry is something that we're looking at as being a priority.
“The one thing that you do have in areas of high population is high numbers of children. That's where you have to invest your money and your people and your time.
“There's a huge body of work to be done in making sure that the young people in our county fall in love with Gaelic games rather than other sports or pastimes.
“We want Gaelic Games to be the topic of conversation in every single household in this county. Getting access to those children from a young age through our schools and clubs is very much central to us doing that.
"Thankfully at present there is a huge hunger amongst young people to play for Down and wear the red and black. We had in excess of 150 players involved in a regionalised u17 competition as part of our County Minor Football trials, earlier in the year. We have 163 lads currently involved in a similar selection process for the u15 Football Panel.
"Naturally, our numbers from a hurling perspective aren’t as significant, but the want the play for Down is there and that’s hugely important. Its reflective of the work being done and the quality of people involved.
"When you have lads choosing to play for Down over playing soccer at a high level, or rugby at an inter-provincial level for example, then that’s an indication that you are doing something right”.
Down players celebrate with the cup after the 2023 EirGrid Ulster U20 Football Championship Final match between Derry and Down at BOX-IT Athletic Grounds in Armagh. Photo by Ben McShane/Sportsfile
Another very important focus for Down GAA in the coming years will be the development of a Centre of Excellence in Ballykinlar.
Planning permission has been secured for a facility that would include four full size GAA pitches (three of them floodlit), changing rooms, gym, multi-use games area, and offices, all of which would be transformative for Down GAA.
“For me, as the Head of Games within the county, the lack of a place that we can really call home is probably the biggest factor that has been holding the county back from a development perspective for the last 10 to 15 years,” says O’Toole.
“We're very much reliant on the good will of second-level schools in the county and, in particular, our clubs, to support us in terms of using facilities and getting access to gyms, et cetera, for our talent academy squads and for our county representative teams at U-17, U20, and even at senior level.
“To be fair, without our clubs and schools we would be on a very sticky wicket.
“We're making do with what we have at the minute and thankfully we have a lot of good people working on the ground both in terms of our full-time Participation Officers, Benny Coulter, Liam Hardy, Mark Poland and Ambrose Rogers, and also some great volunteers supporting our Talent Academies and our representative teams in Hurling and Football.
“But there’s no doubt having a home of our own would make a huge difference.
“The preparation of county teams, in particular, is just on a whole new level now compared to what it was previously. Having somewhere where you can bring players and really embed the ethos of your county and really make the players feel part of something underpins everything you can achieve as a county.
“Not having that has been a problem. Certainly, we're looking forward to a time when we will have it and the prospects that facility would bring for us. We will be relocating our offices onto the Ballykinlar site before the end of April 2024 which is the first phase of the planned move. That is a really positive step for us”.
An artist's impression of Down GAA's planned Centre of Excellence at Ballykinlar.
When St. Malachy’s, Castlewellan reached the Masita GAA Post Primary Schools All-Ireland ‘C’ Football Final a couple of weeks ago around 1,000 supporters made the trip to Carlow for the match in a fleet of busses and taxis.
That’s the sort of passion for football that exists in the county, and it’ll be quickly harnessed if Conor Laverty’s senior team continues to give supporters a cause to get behind.
That, in turn, would make Gaelic football an easier sell for Down GAA’s Coaching and Games department as they set out to implement the county’s strategic plan over the course of the next three years.
After a challenging period it looks like Down football is moving in the right direction again, but those who promote it know too that they need to keep their shoulder to the wheel.
“We're not under any illusions, we're far from the finished product,” says O’Toole.
“As a county we firmly believe that Down are a county that should be sat at the top table. And that will always be our mission, to get back to competing in Division 1 of the Football League and get back to winning Ulster championships and hopefully winning All-Irelands or at least competing for them.
“That's always been the goal in our county and anything less than that just doesn't cut it. We've been fortunate in the sense that over the last two, three, or four years we've experienced a wee bit of success at U20 level and that looks like it's starting to carry through to our senior football team.
“There are green shoots starting to pop up here and there and hopefully we'll see the next 10 years being a wee bit more fruitful in terms of success than the last 10 years.”