STEVEN POACHER: Newry has a Gaelic games future

THERE was a wonderful occasion for our school community here in St Joseph’s, Newry in recent weeks when our u-16.5 team won the Danske Bank Mulholland Cup final in Castleblayney against Fermanagh school St Kevin’s, Lisnaskea on a scoreline of 1-13 to 3-04.

The game itself was refereed superbly well by Monaghan official Martin McNally and with both schools bringing the whole school to the game as supporters, the atmosphere was electric and added to a day that our youngsters will remember for the rest of their lives.

Newry is the fourth largest urban area in the whole of the North of Ireland and was designated a city in 2002. I am from Newry myself, I was born in the city, my mother and father were both from the city, so having the opportunity to now teach and lead the PE department in my home town is a real privilege.

Knowing quite a large percentage of our student population in the school, and their backgrounds and parents etc, is a huge advantage when it comes to building relationships and getting to know pupils. It also made this win even more special because in Newry GAA hasn’t been number one for a long time and thanks to the great work of the likes of Shamrocks and Bosco that mentality is starting to shift a little.

Newry, despite a population of nearly 100,000 people, hasn’t produced a senior inter-county footballer for Down for well over a decade – a phenomenal statistic.

Hopefully with Bosco’s breakthrough u-14 A title won three years ago and the sterling work Newry Shamrocks are doing at underage level this will start to change.

In this year’s Down minor panel there are a number of Newry lads involved, the development squads are starting to be littered with Newry lads from u-14 level up but the biggest shift is the mentality to Gaelic games. This city has had a long standing association with soccer but hopefully the importance of Gaelic games and the value the game brings will start to emerge.

For me, one of the most standout images post game was the smiles, excitement and joy on the faces of our pupils who were there as supporters on the day, particularly our youngest pupils in Year 8 who were looking on in awe thinking, they would love a day like this. This is the big mentality change. At lunch time on the following Monday, in the school yard, there was no headers and volleys being played, it was Gaelic with catch and kick. Impact.

What is most pleasing about this current Mulholland Cup squad is the fact that 12 of the starting 15 are underage again next year which gives us great scope to develop.

We are very fortunate in St Joseph’s we have so many staff who are willing to give up their time for the lads after school, also with our vice principal and principal who are extremely accommodating when providing support and cover for staff for games. I am also very fortunate to have had the help this year of Mayobridge man, Kevin McClorey.

Kevin a member of the staff now for a few years has been an absolute revelation for the coaching after school. The energy, drive, experience and quality he brings to the coaching of our youngsters is admirable. I use the word coaching not training because all we did was coach our lads, never once did they run without a ball or without a purpose.

We started out in October with our boys and our sessions were solely centred around the ball. The ball was at the heart of everything we did. We also made sure the sessions had multiple decision-making opportunities through small-sided games and that proved to be so critical in the second half when playing against a breeze and only a point up facing a serious press from the opposition.

Our ability to work the ball out of tight spaces and execute a counter-attack time and time again came from repetition of body and mind through our small-sided games that we continually played. Having spent a huge amount of time working on our kick-outs at training, it was no surprise we managed to get a multitude of short kick-outs away against the breeze in the second half when the pressure was really on – and this was without any sideline coaching on the day.

This win was a special day for our whole school community. We had nine clubs represented on the day and 33 players in the panel. It was a brilliant occasion and hopefully the first step in starting to produce more Gaelic footballers from our city for our county.

Squad: Aaron O’Hanlon (Ballyholland Harps), Luca Burns (Newry Shamrocks) 3. O’Donavan Rossa Murphy (Thomas Davis Corrishego),Lee Wells (Killeavy), Lorcan Lynch (Newry Bosco), Jonathan Savage (Ballyholland Harps), Aidan Bell (Newry Bosco), Darragh Saul (Saval), James O’Hanlon (Ballyholland Harps), Gavin McHugh (Glenn), Matthew McLaughlin (Newry Bosco), Rory O’Connor (Newry Bosco), Declan Flynn (Newry Shamrocks), Tiernan Burns (Newry Shamrocks), Kevin Turley (Saval), Cathal Casey (Newry Bosco), Callum Bradley (Newry Bosco), Aaron McGuinness (Newry Shamrocks), Oran McCoy (Newry Bosco), Finn White (Saval), Liam Byrne (Saval), Ryan Kerr (Saval), Jake Murphy (Newry Bosco), Aidan Sands (Glenn), Kristian Morgan (Ballyholland Harps), Patrick O’Hanlon (Carrickcruppen), Aidan Quinn (Carrickcruppen), Oisin Garry (Newry Shamrocks), Caoimbhan Griffin (Newry Bosco), Don Farrell (Newry Rugby Club), Dean Gallagher (Newry Rugby Club), Lorcan Comisky (Newry Rugby Club).