Westmeath's Lakeland Óg hurling initiative casts a wide net

By John Harrington

By spreading a wide net the Lakeland Óg initiative in Westmeath has caught a fine haul of hurlers.

It’s a highly innovative programme for U12 hurlers in the county run by the Westmeath Coaching and Games development staff which also involves coaches from 10 different clubs.

The vast majority of eligible hurlers (born in 2013) in the county have participated in the Lakeland Óg initiative which is being delivered in two phases.

Phase 1 is currently underway and involves skills coaching, games-based coaching, skills testing, small-sided games, and introductory athletic development over the course of a four-week block.

This winter block of training will conclude with a nutrition and lifestyle workshop and in January players will regroup for a mixed-teams games series, finishing with a bliz against another county.

“On average we have around 90 players attending the sessions on Friday nights and in total we've had 114 kids sign up,” says Westmeath GAA Games Manager, Darren Magee.

“There are 145 eligible players in the U12 age-group in the county so it's been a great response to have 114 of them taking part.

“There has been a great buy-in from the all the clubs and great collaboration between our coaching and games development staff headed up by Emmet Corrigan and the club coaches.

“In week one the full session was planned by ourselves, week two was a combination of ourselves and the club coaches, and weeks three and four is driven by the club coaches and our staff step back a little bit and observe and help when required.

“We do four weeks before Christmas which is phase one and then phase two when the weather gets a bit better.

“The initiative has evolved and grown as we've gone along and the buy in from the coaches is what's really driven it.

“It's a good time of the year for an initiative like this because clubs are dormant at the moment

“The coming together and the shared ideas has been a huge positive. And the bottom line is that you're getting lots of young lads out playing hurling with a high standard of coaching.

“We're mentoring coaches as well as players and that's raising their standard too. It's a win-win at both ends of it. You have the players going back to their clubs as better hurlers and the coaches going back to their clubs as better coaches.”

Phase 1 of the Lakeland Óg initiative also serves as an informal talent identification stage.

Some of the coaches involved are also part of the Westmeath GAA academy set-up and the opportunity to work with almost every hurler in the age-group in the county means no young hurler will slip through the cracks when county development panels are brought together.

By exposing a larger group of players to the sort of coaching and environment they will find in a development squad it prepares them for the challenge and can give individual players the self-belief to make representing their county a more clear-eyed goal.

“This offering complements what clubs are doing but it also pushes the young players who take part onto a higher standard,” says Magee.

“Especially with the smaller clubs around north Westmeath, the numbers mightn't be great, and players develop better in bigger groups like this.

“You're looking to expose these young lads to as much hurling as possible and now we’re doing it at a time of the year when they previously wouldn’t have had that opportunity.

“All the studies show that it's the early developers that make county development squads and the late developers often drop out of sport because they're not given the same opportunities.

“With this Lakeland Óg initiative you're also trying to identify those late developers and expose them to a higher level of coaching.”

Phase 2 of the Lakeland Óg initiative for players born in 2013 will take place next summer over a four to six week period.

A second round of skills testing will take place and sessions will double up as a formal development squad trials.

By completion of Phase 2 every player will have received approximately eight hours coaching and four hours games exposure.

Earlier this year players born in 2012 took part in an U13 Lakeland Óg initiative that was also very successful.

Westmeath senior manager, Kevin O’Brien, and county senior stars David Williams and Gary Greveille were involved and the process produced both the 2026 Westmeath U14 hurling development squad and its coaching team.

Those who didn’t make the initial cut for that development squad have continued to come together in groups of around 50-60 for weekly sessions to ensure their continued development.

The county operates an open-door policy for the development squads and two players who attended these sessions have since been promoted to the U14 development squad for 2026.

Spreading the net wide ensures a developing county like Westmeath can identify talent in real time and ensure every young hurler gets a fair opportunity to prove their worth.

It’s not just about bringing the best through to county level, the manner in which the Lakeland Óg initiative nurtures talent and engages clubs will help ensure more players go on to complete the player pathway with their own club.

“By working with the clubs and putting things like this in place you're developing players and keeping them playing in their clubs and hopefully getting them to senior level,” says Magee.

“Obviously the icing on the cake for any club is to have a player on a county team, but that's secondary to keeping young lads playing hurling or football for as long as possible.

“There’s a massive passion for hurling in Westmeath. Our clubs and coaches are very invested in it and they want the best for Westmeath hurling so we have to look to see how we can improve the game with the challenges we have around not having as many playing the game as you might have in some other counties.

“The bottom line is that we want to get more lads with hurls in their hands, and the Lakeland Óg initiative helps deliver that.”