Growing the game: Neil McManus outlines the focus of the Hurling Development Committee

The GAA’s Hurling Development Committee unveiled their new plans to grow the game including a process to appoint a Head of Hurling. Former Antrim star Neil McManus is part of the committee. He outlined their targets to Michael McMullan…

IT’S a Wednesday afternoon and Neil McManus is in Croke Park for the official launch of the Hurling Development Committee.

A former Saffron star, he is preparing for the defence of Cushendall’s Antrim and Ulster titles. Beyond that, Davy Fitzgerald has enlisted him as part of his Antrim management team.

When McManus answers the phone, he is in planet hurling. And totally zoned in. It’s a game that looks great when the top end of it is beamed to the masses.

It’s in his blood. But he is frustrated. It’s not a game that everyone in Ireland get a proper look at. Too many youngsters don’t have access to hurling. That’s the bottom line.

M McM: Neil, what is your takeaway from the early stages of the committee?

N McM: The key point here is that hurling really needs this. We need to join up our thinking and come at this with a real strategic approach that’s going to allow us to identify the areas of greatest need and understand what successes we’ve had over the last number of years and decades.

Then, we have to ask ourselves how do we replicate that in the places that are struggling. That’s it really in a nutshell. We need more participation, especially across Ulster and Connacht, and the way to do that is obviously through primary schools.

Ulster has the added caveat of trying to get a community involved that wouldn’t traditionally be involved in hurling.

There’s a huge amount of work to be done but the Hurling Development Committee in Croke Park have advertised the role of National Head of Hurling. That person’s job will be to figure out how we roll all this out and implement it. A lot of the data we’ve been gathering over the last number of months will be of great use to them, and the sooner we can get that person in the post, the better, and hopefully we’ll have them in the early year.

M McM: What are the main areas then? We hear of new clubs starting up. It is a case of setting up new hurling clubs, focusing on the schools or is it a bit of both?

N McM: It’s all of that. It’s participation through the development of new clubs, through making sure that every child in Ireland gets the opportunity to play this game.

This is our national sport and all the children in Ireland are not getting the opportunity to play hurling which I think is a desperate state of affairs.

We have to find avenues to make sure that’s no longer the case because there’s nothing that represents us, as a nation, like hurling does. It’s the epitome of who we are as Irish people.

The community ethos, that warrior spirit, the poetic way in which it’s played, it’s everything that we are. Yet, we’re not giving every child in Ireland the opportunity to play the sport.

There’s over a million people in Ireland who were not born in Ireland but they’re living here. What a way to help those people integrate into the community, an introduction to hurling. There’s no better way to learn about Irish life than to play the sport of hurling and to understand it, at the very least.

M McM: Growth is important, based on what you are outlining but what are the obstacles? Is it the money needed to set up a new club?

N McM: Let’s use Ulster as a test case. We have areas where the infrastructure is there in terms of pitches, but maybe it’s a football-dominated area. There might be six or seven football clubs existing in that area. What is to stop us forming one hurling club that gives that entire community the opportunity to play hurling?

Is there a barrier in terms of equipment needed to play hurling? Yes, there is, and that barrier doesn’t exist in Gaelic football. You throw a ball out, you’re good to go. With hurling, you need hurls, sliotars and helmets.

We have to remove that barrier, and that can only be done through finance. So if there is a fledgling hurling team, we have to find finance through the GAA and the government to make sure that equipment is not a barrier to playing hurling at the primary school level as well.

The other key point of that is that we have to make sure that the powers who run Gaelic football are forced to ensure that hurling is given the opportunity to grow.

M McM: You spoke at the Gaelic Life All-Stars about needing the Ulster Hurling Championship to make a return. Is that something that could help change the hurling world?

N McM: It would change the Ulster hurling world. The young people that are going to, through the work of this committee, end up with hurls in their hand. We need to give them the opportunity to see their heroes playing at the top level.

While Antrim are competing in Leinster, I’m not advocating that they should be involved in the Ulster Hurling Championship. If we seed the teams correctly, and I’ve obviously been over this ground a few times, we would have very competitive matches. They could be played off over the course of about three weeks in a festival of hurling that could coincide with the existing Lory Meagher, Nickey Rackard and Christy Ring Cup competitions.

We could make sure that we have very, very competitive games. That hurling championship in Ulster is so important, as the flagship competition for hurling in Ulster is not left dormant again. And this could be implemented in 2025.

M McM: In terms of fixtures, do the competitions then share the same window?

N McM: If we take a look at the end dates for the Ring, Rackard, Meagher and McDonagh cups. We could play the Ulster Championship because of the way that we could seed the teams. We could play it at the end of those competitions very, very nicely. I wouldn’t extend their seasons by very much at all, it’s a matter of a couple of weeks.

We need to extend the seasons and get those counties more games. They are the counties that need the most games. If we seed the teams correctly, we will also have competitive games. It is an absolute no-brainer.

M McM: From chatting to players and with fixture congestion, do they want the extra games?

N McM: We don’t have enough games at the lower level at the right time of the year, around the championship time. If you take it, the hurling championship finishes up in July for Cork or Clare who’ve been in the All-Ireland hurling final.

If you are playing in the Ring, Rackard, Meagher or McDonagh Cup, the McDonagh Cup, the second competition in hurling, is played on the same weekend as the provincial championships. The others are finished before that, so the opportunity is there.

Some of these counties finish up their intercounty season and wait for months to play the club championship.

We have an opportunity, especially in lower tiers of hurling, to add in something that is very competitive. We have to look at that for Connacht. For Galway playing in Leinster, it is very achievable to get the Connacht Championship going again, as well as Ulster.

M McM: On a different note and still tied into promotion. Given the tight time for fitting all the games into The Sunday Game, is there a need to stream all these extra games like TG4 do with some of their coverage? If they had one camera and maybe a commentator…

N McM: Absolutely. We live in the age of digital streaming. So, why would we not utilise that and have a highlight show for each of the competitions for example? Why could we not do that, by putting them all online? Is that something that could be investigated, like GAA GO for example? Yes, it is. I would be fully in favour of that. The more exposure we can get for hurling the better.

At the minute, people think hurling is in good health because the game is so good at the very top level. If you have been at our All-Ireland semi-finals or the All-Ireland final, you would be absolutely spoilt by the quality of hurling but that is the top of the mountain really.

M McM: You were part of the BBC coverage that had the All-Ireland finals broadcast across the mainstream networks. Thomas Niblock was saying about the reach it had. What sort of feedback did you get from the hurling coverage?

N McM: The interest that I had, some very well-known professional sports people from different sporting groups were making contact with me after seeing hurling for the first time this year. They were absolutely blown away by what hurling is and that the players were doing it on a volunteer basis. And these people are doing it on a day-to-day basis.

It’s the one area of the world where the sport is played at a professional level where the people who are playing are volunteers and are playing for the love and pride in their parish.

It’s incredible the feedback that we’ve got and so many people want to try and tap into it so there’s never been a better opportunity to spread the game.

M McM: Back to the Hurling Development Committee, is an important focus getting the clubs to link with the school like they have done in Dublin?

N McM: What we need in Ulster is different to the other provinces and the needs of every area are not the same. Some areas just need funding to take away the equipment barriers and cost so everything is there because the will is there and there’s a GAA history and culture.

On other areas, they need the expertise. In those cases, they need Games Development Officers to come in and work with their coaches to make sure that we’re giving them really, really good guidance in terms of how you can coach hurling to a young team and how you can set it up.

We have to make sure that all requirements are available, that’s what we need to do. That will be one of the key components of the role of the National Head of Hurling to understand which areas need what support to make sure that they get it.

M McM: Neil, is it a case also of honing in on dual clubs? Lavey have added ladies’ football. Sleacht Néill are coaching their football and hurling teams in dual sessions. When you mention having a handful of football clubs feeling into a new hurling club, that is your main point isn’t it. That’s where it starts.

N McM: I’m glad you mentioned Lavey there. That’s a good example there. (Former Derry hurler) Paddy Henry is from Castledawson, that’s where he played his football all his life, but they don’t hurl. He played his hurling for Lavey.

So, think of the value that Paddy Henry added to Derry hurling over the past decade and a half. I think, if he hadn’t gone and took the bull by the horns himself, or his family didn’t get him that opportunity to play hurling…think of the loss he would have made to Derry GAA over that period of time. There definitely wouldn’t have been an Ulster u-21 success without him.

Where is the next Paddy Henry coming from? They are out there and how easy Derry could’ve missed out on him. He went on to hurl with St Patrick’s, Maghera in the Mageean Cup. That all came from him linking in with Lavey and having that interest.

At all levels, we need to give the youth of Ireland the opportunity to play our national game, that would be my headline of where I want them to go.

M McM: What would you say to anyone out there who feels hurling is something they want to try but it’s not currently on their doorstep?

N McM: There are two key kick-off points in this. We have been working in the background for the last five or six months as a committee.

Now we are launching the National Head of Hurling. We are also going to bring the Hurling Development Committee on the road, around to places where we’d love for hurling participation to be increased. And that’s across all the provinces.

There are 12 of us on the committee but I would implore people who have an interest in hurling to attend one of those sessions and we will be publishing all these in due course.

Any player, parent or club with an interest in getting involved in hurling can get in touch with the Hurling Development Committee via email – queries.hdc@gaa.ie