Thrive Development Programme will help players and coaches grow

By John Harrington

“As many as possible for as long as possible” is the core philosophy of the GAA’s Coaching and Games Department.

To this end, they have developed the Thrive Development Programme for players and coaches which will be used as a guiding document for county academy squads going forward.

Six learning modules for academy coaches are currently being developed and will be finalised this year and made available for the 2027 season.

The emphasis of the modules will be on holistic player-centred approaches that integrate physical, technical, tactical, psychological, and social development elements, whilst also prioritising long-term potential over immediate success.

“We want to create really good environments for both players and coaches to develop within the academy system,” says the GAA’s National Player Development Lead, Jack Cooney.

“The priority shouldn’t be to get the best out of the player for the here and now, but to develop them for the longer term. We do this with better practices that are more evidence-informed, such as bio-banding and so on.

“We also want to engage with academy coaches and help them develop their craft and their practice.

“We're not expecting a volunteer coach to come into the academies for the under-14s or under-15s and be experts.

“We want to help them develop their coaching craft and their coaching practice by upskilling them, by providing good education, providing evidence-informed practice, and good mentoring so that if they come in and spend a few years in the academies, that there are going to be better coaches coming out the other end of that commitment.

“There are over 1,100 coaches involved in the academies in both codes, U14s, U15s, U16s, and U17s.

“You're not going to have 1,100 new coaches every year because some of them will stay in it for a few years, but if those coaches develop their competency to coach, then that's also going to improve what goes on in the clubs they go back to so now you have a greater reach as well.

“Really, at the end of the day, it's all about people development and really understanding how to build good environments to develop people.”

Over 10,000 young players will take part in inter-county talent academy competitions this year.

Many of these competitions have great traditions, but Cooney doesn’t believe the priority for county talent academies should be the winning of silverware. Winning and competitive environments play an important part in the development of players but it is only one element of a complex process.

Instead, the Thrive Development Programme puts a much bigger premium on how successfully academy graduates go on to complete the player pathway with their clubs and become well-rounded people as well as sportspeople.

If they continue to represent their county at minor, U20, and senior level, that’s also a good focus and bonus rather than the number one priority.

“100%, that's what it's about, the more holistic development of the person,” says Cooney.

“OK, they're a brilliant player, but let's improve their psychosocial skills, let's improve their self-esteem, coping skills and many more attributes that benefits their character, self-awareness and self-regulation through a process of education and exposure to many different and varied experiences”.

“There are so many other things that they can develop as a result of coming through the academies or spending time in the academies.

“For sure, they might go on and represent their respective county seniors or under-20s and that's a great outcome.

“But there's really good numbers out there from some of the academies that a huge percentage of the players that come through the academies go on and play senior for their club. That's an alternative metric that we should be chasing, recognising and rewarding.

“We should strive to create a safe environment for coaches as well so that they don't feel under pressure to have to win a particular competition or tournament in order to succeed.

“There's other ways of measuring success. We need to be clear and committed to these. All stakeholders involved - players, parents, coaches, clubs, academies, schools, officials - in the developmental process have important roles and contributions to make each player’s experience rewarding and memorable”.

“But if you build a really good environment and have all of these inputs then the chances of having better outcomes are higher because there's a lot of really good ingredients that's going into this person or into this player.

“What a player needs is a more holistic player-centred environment. There can be so much good happening and so much development happening, but it might not be reflective in the results. The important thing is the results don't highlight everything that's going on.”

In the past, Talent ID systems for county academies often prioritised short-term physical performance over holistic long-term development because there was too much of an emphasis on winning silverware.

County U14 panels tended to be stacked with players who were bigger and stronger at that age, and this sometimes excluded late developers of greater potential.

Quite often the early developers rely too much on their physical strength in matches and you can understand why. If they’re capable of running through tackles in straight lines then it makes sense to do so in a match situation.

But as this player grows older and his peers catch up with him in terms of physical maturation, he finds strength alone is no longer enough and because he never developed a broader range of skills he has now been left behind.

Anyone who has played hurling or Gaelic football can tell of you of former team-mates who seemed set for inter-county stardom when they lorded games at U-14 but then failed to even make the grade as a senior club hurler as an adult.

Talent identification will never be an exact science, but by replacing one-off trials with multi-point observations across school, club, and county matches; introducing objective maturation profiling to inform selection and guide load; and deploying bio-banded games to better cater for both early and late developers, there’s a better chance you’ll reduce burnout, early drop-out, and exclusion.

Through the Thrive Development Programme, those players who are now selected for academy squads will have a better chance of reaching their full potential because the programme is about the long-term development of the whole person rather that focusing on short-term performance.

“At 14 years of age research will indicate that it's almost impossible to predict who's going to make it,” says Cooney.

“Best practice around biobanding, relative age effect, all of these things are important, but you’re also taking a holistic approach by trying to develop the player's technical and tactical ability, their decision-making, their problem-solving on the pitch, their bilateral proficiency, their psychosocial skills.

“And if they're very strong in one thing, we need to identify other capacities across the physical, psychosocial, technical and tactical domains that we need to develop in order to become a very rounded individual and a very rounded player.

“Another key area is post-primary Gaelic games. That’s a hugely important environment because you'll have academy players transitioning across the club, the county, and the school and it’s important not to make excessive demands on them. Good guidance on best practice planning principles is provided as part of the Gaelic Games Athletic Development Level One Course which is being delivered across the country.

“We also need to be mindful that there could be a dual player so they could be involved in both codes and in some cases playing other sports.

“So, our responsibility is to look after that individual, not to maximise our take from the individual in one code. Collaboration and communication across all environments and between stakeholders is a priority here. This is identified as one of the key principles of Thrive.

“We have to make sure that each individual reaches their full potential in whatever it is going to be, and figure out how we can best add to this player's development rather than demanding it all off them.”

You can download more information on the Thrive Player and Coach Development programme below.