Sean McVeigh working hard for Donegal hurling

By John Harrington

Last March, Sean McVeigh was appointed as Donegal GAA’s Hurling Academy Head for the County.

The creation of the new role was one of five goals outlined in a hurling development plan published in November last year and underlined the county’s determination to promote both codes equally under Chairperson Mary Coughlan.

McVeigh was made for the role.

As well as being hugely respected in the county for his long and successful inter-county career, he 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 qualifications are matched with a zeal to raise the level of Donegal hurling and since his appointment he’s hit the ground running.

“I’m absolutely loving it, it’s been really, really good,” McVeigh told GAA.ie

“Obviously there's been some great work that's been done to date before this role became available with the likes of Marty McGrath and Declan Bushell doing great work to develop hurling in Donegal.

“But I suppose being able to actually have someone who is dedicated to looking after the Hurling Academy side of things gives me the time to put more structures in place to build the pathway for the players and the coaches.

“You see a lot in the media about developing the game in weaker counties but what I find is a lot of those conversations can be really generic. It's almost coming from the perspective of the more traditional counties in terms of the lens they would view the game through.

“The reality is that all the non-traditional counties have their unique set of challenges and problems so a one size fits all approach isn’t going to work.

“In Donegal, we obviously are in the northwest here, so when you go up through the levels getting meaningful matches to develop teams is definitely a challenge for us.

“The size of our county is a challenge in itself as well, particularly now as we're getting more clubs playing hurling. Our numbers aren’t just trending upwards across all levels in terms of the academy, but even at just at underage club level which is great.

“We have to look at what are our unique challenges and then use our resources wisely to build the game and that's what we've been trying to do as a community here.

“We've made some real progress. We've got a hurling development plan in place now. We have an academy structure.

“We have a amalgamated schools playing in the Ulster Colleges competitions. We have the establishment of seven new hurling unis.

“We had our biggest attendance ever for the county hurling final this year.

"We were running blitzes alongside that so there's just a real feel-good factor in Donegal hurling at the minute.

“We're just trying to progress it on and the announcement of more funding from the Government for hurling is really timely. Hopefully we'll benefit from that so we can get more resources on the ground to start helping and supporting the new clubs.”

If hurling is to significantly grow its participation numbers in the developing counties then it needs to benefit from the same sort of coaching and games development support that football does.

Donegal set a good example in this regard by giving their hurling academy all of the same time and access as their football academy to their state of the art facilities in their Centre of Excellence in Convoy.

“We're so lucky to have Convoy as a facility,” says McVeigh. “You have five top class pitches, and auditorium, a gym. There's a new gym going in now as well.

“We have 80-plus the last four Sundays in Convoy, just going through a bit of a development block, doing their S&C in the gym, and on the pitch for the hurling session. They get two hours 15 minutes every Sunday there.

“We had an elite development camp there in August, where we'd Michael Fennelly up from Kilkenny, who was absolutely brilliant with the lads. He took them for hurling sessions, but also talked about how to best prepare as a player.

“The transformation in terms of what these young lads get now compared to what my generation of players would have gotten is just huge.

“I think from senior level right the way down, players are seeing a really, really good setup, and they're saying, 'OK, we're going to get our athletic development, we're going to have proper structure sessions'. There's no real difference between the football side and the hurling side now, and that's been really, really good.

“Once you get in and you get coaching and it's great to see the response from the lads. They work hard and then they're buzzing afterwards and coming up and giving all the coaches high fives and saying thank you.

“I think when you see things like that you're on to a winner and hopefully we can keep these lads engaged the whole way through.”

McVeigh’s main role is with the Academy, but he’s also heavily involved in supporting the roll-out of the county’s overall hurling development plan.

One of the goals is to implement a dual nursery policy in all clubs in the county, a prospect McVeigh believes would have huge benefits not just for hurling but for the overall health of the clubs themselves.

His own club St. Eunan’s have won the county senior double this year with McVeigh still a key member of the hurling team, so he knows from experience that both codes can complement one other.

“To me there isn't really an excuse not to have a dual nursery policy,” says McVeigh. “I don't necessarily understand why it would be challenging for clubs and I would argue that it actually makes clubs stronger.

“Conor O'Donnell, the St Eunan’s football team captain, referenced it in his winning speech that you get a buzz from the other teams winning. We also won the Senior Ladies for the first time in 21 years as well.

“All of that drives a whole winning buzz and atmosphere around the club when you have both codes.

“As well as that, at underage level especially being able to play different codes develops different learnings within the players, both physically and in terms of their skills and coordination and things like that.

"That is something that we'd love to see across the county to have more and more joined up underage academies."

Another priority in the Donegal hurling development plan is to develop club-school links, something that McVeigh believes could be transformative for hurling in the county.

“A group of us have had meetings in Donegal the last six months about that,” he says.

“So much of the GAA's focus when it comes to game development is now around schools coaching, but unless there's those proper school links to the clubs, it can be a little bit redundant.

“We've come up with a plan that goes in and meets with the clubs and understands where they're at in terms of resources and what their needs are and are they actually able to support some of these school links and welcome in these players who are getting recruited via the schools.

“That’s another reason why we could definitely do with some support from the money set aside for hurling in the Government’s budget because having more games development officers would really help us get into clubs and help them with their academies and with developing those links with local schools.

“We need to help those club coaches be able to properly coach the skills of the games. If you had more club academies doing that to a high standard then it would make a huge difference by the time the players get to us in the county academy at U-14 level.

“Using sales terminology, we're kind of looking at it almost like a sales pipeline. When you get poor leads quality into the pipeline, then it's going to be a poor outcome. But if you can improve what's gone into it, you'll see that reward down the line as well.

“We just think those really small things will make a massive difference. If we can strengthen all those things, which we've already started to do, we think that in the long term that'll have huge benefits.”

McVeigh is convinced that Donegal hurling can go from strength to strength in the coming years because the county board has proven it is committed to given it the same backing as football.

“They've been absolutely brilliant," says McVeigh. "Cormac Hartnett is coming into his fifth year as Hurling Officer and the work that he’s doing is brilliant.

“And then obviously getting that support from our chairperson, Mary Coughlan, who has been an incredible supporter of developing the game and sees real value in driving Donegal on at all levels and all sports. Her support has been amazing, as well as all the rest of the county board

“In fairness to them, when you go to them with a plan and you say this is what we want to do and this is why, and it's a professional enough plan, then you get supported.

“They might challenge you on a couple of things, but the support we get once we have things thought through has been absolutely amazing, and I hope that that continues. We've got another year, 2027 with the current board, and it'll be absolutely brilliant to just keep working with them.

"And you hope that the next board that comes in after that will continue on with the work that's been going on because there are great foundations in place now.

“We have probably the biggest playing numbers that we've ever had and we've got some really, really great people and really good plans in place, but we just need to be able to deliver them now.”