Tipperary Performance Analyst Dr Damien Young recently completed his PhD, where he investigated the match-play demands of hurling. Damien has represented both his club, Drom- Inch and county, Tipperary at every level on the field of play.

He has published eight research papers in International Journals about the demands of hurling and has presented at the National GAA Coaching Conference 'So Many Decisions, So Little Time' and the World Congress of Performance Analysis in Sport.

Any coach that has registered previously must register for any individual session that they wish to attend. This is because each new session involves a new set of log on details that are sent out electronically on the day of each session.

A valid email address is required for each registration. Registration for the upcoming session involving Damien Young, as well as details of the session to be presented are available at https://learning.gaa.ie/gaacoachwebinar2020

By Cian O’Connell

A decade and a half ago Damien Young started to study hurling in minute detail.

That journey continues with Young earning a PhD on the subject of the ‘match play demands of hurling’ last year.

It was a reward for significant graft, but Young’s mind was always curious about the game. Highly rated as an underage goalkeeper in Tipperary, Young subsequently graduated to the senior inter-county panel.

Since 2008 Young has been part of various Tipperary backroom set-ups. Lessons have been learned and advice given along the way.

Studying the game in real depth is a challenge Young was willing to embrace. “That is maybe what drives you, I started back in 2007 looking at the physical demands of the game and the skill demands of the game,” Young admits.

“What actually happens in the game? I'm involved with Tipp since 2008, you are constantly evolving asking questions about the game, trying to find out more.

“The more that you find out, the more you want to find out and the more questions it throws up. So I went on to get a PhD out of it, focusing on hurling. You can imagine a PhD on hurling is surreal.”

There was a curiosity to Young’s approach. The Drom-Inch clubman charts his own educational path where sport and study combined.

“Back when I started college you had very few sports courses available, I did Business Studies and Recreational Leisure for three years,” Young says about his initial time in Waterford IT.

“I worked as the GAA officer for three years and then I went back to do my fourth year in business and leisure. I followed on doing a research masters looking at the physical demands. That was back in 2010, 2011, and 2012.

“Then I started lecturing with Setanta College and Limerick IT. That developed a relationship with a University in France.

“I went out there lecturing for a week, they then brought back students to us for a week. We developed a relationship and I did my PhD through a University in France.”

The relationship forged with University Franche-Comté proved to be a fruitful partnership for Young. His research unearthed new findings.

“Totally, brand new knowledge and I had a French supervisor and an Italian supervisor,” Young explains. “Halfway through my PhD my Italian supervisor went back to work in Milan.

“He was my main contact, we were talking on Skype all of the time. On my research papers I have two Italians and a French person. So it is unique really to have that expertise outside of the hurling working on hurling. They were blown away by hurling.

“The Italian guy was over a number of times, one of the best matches I took him to was Galway against Wexford Under 21 in Portlaoise. It was a phenomenal match, it was incredible, it went to extra-time, incredible.”

Hurling academia will be a growth area in future years according to Young. “For sure, I have two research masters students working now,” Young states. “One is working on Camogie and one is working on hurling. I'm currently working on another research paper in hurling. So this thing is ready to take off.

“I'm really interested in looking at new ideas and people can come at it from a different slant. Also we would invite applicants. For the last one we put out a research area and got a number of applicants applying to take up that research masters.

“We have the capability for people to come to us with ideas, we are more than happy to look at those. You have undergrad opportunities and a range of masters now in sports in different topics.

“It is wide open for anyone. We have published eight research papers in hurling, we have two more in the pipeline. They aren't ready to go for publication yet, but we haven't yet looked at other elements of the game.”

This evening Young’s webinar will focus on what he has found out during the past three years monitoring hurling.

“We will present the information from over the past three years on what the match is about,” Young says.

“If you are thinking about preparing players for club or inter-county what are we getting them ready for? What I'm going to be looking at is the duration demands and the physical demands. How is the game broken up?

“The game is continuous for 70 minutes of action if not in play all of the time. So players are stopping and starting all of the time. If we know that, then we can replicate that in training so they are more prepared for those demands.”

Young has witnessed first hand the dramatic change in how teams approach hurling. “Back in the early 2000s I was on the Tipp panel,” Young recalls.

“You had a manager, a coach, and a selector. That was it. The coach did the physical preparation of the team too.

“Fast forward to now, you have two strength and conditioning coaches working with a team, you have one or maybe three skills coaches working with a team, a manager. You have physios, performance analysts, the resources are building around a team all of the time.”

Finding the right blend between skill and science, though, is a mission that can be tricky to accomplish. “It is not easy because you have teams right across the country preparing really well,” Young remarks.

“If you were the only team preparing at that level you would have an advantage, but you don't. All the teams are at a seriously high level.

“If we didn't know the physical demands of hurling we might be doing too much of that training and neglecting the time to put into the skills. If we know the physical demands of hurling and we are able to match them in training, integrate them into the skills practice now we have more time for skills.”

Every outfit is looking for an edge, but the best practice now is to adopt an ‘integrated conditioning’ method according to Young. “You really are trying to improve your team all of the time,” Young adds. “You are identifying where they can improve and where they are strong and going after those elements. It is what is known as integrated conditioning.

“You use the ball and use skill to get fit. Rather than 'lads we are coming over here to do fitness and when we have the fitness done you'll go off over to the skills coach, then you'll go back over to the fitness guy'.

“Players don't really have the time for that. They are busy players so we have to maximise when we get them together, looking at integrated conditioning where we do the fitness with the ball.”

Has that evolved satisfactorily? “Yeah, for sure,” Young replies. “There is more time from a coaching point of view going into it. They have the resources to bounce ideas off each other where you have three or four people involved in coaching.

“They probably realise that players can't train anymore so they have to make use of the time when they have them.”

Young has used his own time extremely well. His career on and off the field remains worth following and the valuable research goes on.