By John Harrington

Ireland manager, Damien Coleman, believes Saturday’s Hurling-Shinty international will be a great opportunity for the Irish players to display skills that are being coached out of the modern game.

The Galway native is disillusioned by how so many hurling coaches prioritise possession and put players under strict orders to get the sliotar in their hand rather than strike it on the ground or double it in the air.

“I think you'd be taken off now in the modern game if you don't stick rigidly to those tactics and game-plan,” says Coleman. “I think hurling is an instinct game and it has to be automatic in the brain.

“I think we're stereotyping players too much. We're putting them into formations and structure that are maybe not natural to them. I think the best coaches in our game presently are the ones who afford the players individual autonomy.

“Under the hybrid hurling-shinty rules you can’t handle the ball so it’s lift and strike, soloing, and ground hurling - all the skills that hurling should have in the modern era but that the modern coach doesn't allow because the modern coach wants everything played through the hands, played through the lines, retaining possession.”

Coleman doesn’t believe those first-time hurling skills should be consigned to the scrapheap and hopes a new generation of coaches encourages their players to practice ground and overhead hurling.

“I'm maybe more of a traditionalist in the way I think as a coach,” he says. “I'd love to see the game evolve again and to see teams play like the Offaly team of the 90s did with great ground hurling and doubling on the ball in the air.

“John Fenton's goal for Cork against Limerick when it hit it off the ground from 80 yards was just pure instinct. Ball lands, bang, ball in the back of the net.

“Now coaches don't want you doubling on the ball at all and I'm just not sure about the way the game is being coached now. The game is always evolving and I think some coach will arrive in and change it again.

“I think a player shouldn't be penalised for a great ground stroke, left or right, or doubling on the ball in the air, that's a great skill. But we don't have it because it's not coached.

“Soloing and striking off the hurley is a little bit more prevalent in our game, and these are all brilliant skills and I think this hybrid game of hurling-shinty encourages players to go back to basics.

“In some of the coaching sessions we were doing we had household names in hurling coming to us after the session saying, 'that ground hurling drill was brilliant'. You'd be asking one or two of them when they did it last and they thought maybe at U-12 level.

“They haven't had any exposure to that skill in maybe 15 years of their hurling lives, they did it when they were juveniles. I think there's a need for the inclusivity of all skills in the game of hurling going forward and the hurling-shinty hybrid game offers you that.”

Coleman and his selectors Terence ‘Sambo’ McNaughton, Michael Kavanagh, and Kieran Kingston ran the rule over 200 players from Joe McDonagh, Christy Ring, Nickey Rackard, and Lory Meagher Cup counties before whittling that cohort down to 13 players and adding seven Liam MacCarthy Cup players to make up the 20-man panel.

He’s confident they’ve picked a group of players especially suited to the hybrid game where the ability to play first-time hurling will be crucial.

“We've picked a lot of technically proficient and skilled hurlers and believe we have the right player to deliver the ground-hurling, the lift and strike, moving the ball early and fast, and the lift, solo, and carry,” he says.

“We based our selection on technical proficiency, decision-making, and the team-play aspect.”

With players from developing counties like Monaghan, Roscommon, Wicklow, and Fermanagh among others in the Ireland panel, Coleman believes the Hurling-Shinty international provides a great opportunity to highlight the high standard of hurlers from counties outside of the traditional powerbase of the game.

Coleman himself has spent many years growing the game in the role of Connacht Hurling Director, and is passionate about giving young players in developing counties the opportunity to play hurling.

“The line across the country from Galway to Dublin and all the hurling wilderness north of that line that Martin Fogarty was preaching about for years, we have to have a serious look at it as an Association,” he says.

“We have done a lot, but we need to do a lot more to help and support hurling in the north of the country and even in my own province in Connacht with Mayo, Roscommon, Sligo, and Leitrim.

“There's such passion for the game there but the numbers are small. The number one sport is football but I think we can both live in the same marriage and live in the same space, hurling and football, if you have good people there who will think outside the box.

“If a boy in a developing hurling county wants to play hurling then he should be afforded the opportunity through a fixtures programme to do so. And it shouldn't impact on his football venture either. It's very important we develop the game and I'm delighted that 13 of the 20 players on this Irish team are coming from the developing counties.

“Joe McDonagh was a good friend of mine over the years and I'm very passionate about the Joe McDonagh Championship, the Ring, Rackard, and Meagher Championships.

“I'd like to say a word too about all the players that came to trials. We had to pick 13 out of maybe 200 players from McDonagh, Ring, Rackard, and Meagher counties who were in the equation. We feel we have a very strong 20-man squad now and it's great too that 14 counties are represented.”

Saturday, October 21

Hurling-Shinty International

Ireland v Scotland, Páirc Esler, Newry, 2.45pm. (TG4 YouTube channel)