By Kieran Lynch

ST BRONAGH’S, Rostrevor announced the appointment of Ronan McCartan as their new club coaching officer last week, as the South Down club looks to implement a new development strategy from a grassroots level.

McCartan brings with him an impressive CV, having been involved in underage player development with Gaelfast, Ulster GAA and the Down development squad, and he is thrilled to have been offered the full-time role, which he hopes will benefit the club long-term.

“It’s an exciting time for the club; they’re definitely a forward thinking club,” said McCartan.

“I’ve been with Gaelfast for a while now and Ulster, doing similar work, and I do think that this is the way that clubs will go in the future. I think Rostrevor are getting ahead of the game, because I think having a structure like this in place can really benefit a club.”

Two key points of emphasis of the role are to up skill the club’s pool of coaches to ensure that the players are receiving high-level training for the benefit of their development, as well as the club strengthening its links with local schools, so that they improve the pathway to success for their underage teams.

“With the role, I’ll be feeding into three local schools, Killowen, Kilbroney Integrated and St Bronagh’s,” McCartan explained.

“It’s something I’m very passionate about to be honest, I’ve always been excited about getting involved with the schools and doing work at underage, because you can definitely see the benefit of it.

“If you look around at the clubs which are successful now, they at some stage, have put an emphasis on their youth, and Rostrevor certainly want to do that too.

“I’ll be taking sessions with them and doing after-school work too, to create a pathway structure for the underage at Rostrevor. Also, I’ll hopefully be creating coaching pathways for players and coaches alike.”

As well as his experience in youth development, McCartan has enjoyed success in highly competitive environments. He coached Saul to a Down Intermediate Championship in 2020, the Down u-20 team to an Ulster title in 2021, and is the current manager of the Down Ladies.

Whilst those roles are results-driven and underage coaching centres mostly around development, McCartan explained how many aspects of coaching are transferable regardless of the age-profile of a team, or how competitive the environment is.

“It’s all relevant in the sense of creating environments where people can be successful,” he said.

“The environment has to be one where people want to be there first of all, and then there has to be a pathway for success also; not just for players, there will be a big emphasis placed on working with the coaches as well.

“There are an awful lot of ups and downs when coaching at senior level and at county level, so you have to have a passion for it, because you do take knocks and you always have to want to keep coming back to it.

“But it’s the same thing when coaching children for me, because they have ups and downs too, and you want to give them the opportunity to be successful, and ensure that they’re enjoying their time playing.”

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