Underage Dilemna

the kelt

Am managing and training an underage team with the Club back home.

Retired a few years from playing with the Club and havent really been involved at all until i was asked by a number of parents would i take over a team. There had been a few issues with a coupe of different trainers over the years at underage, U12's been sent to do laps and press ups as their training, a few lads showing promise and the rest just abandoned to do their own thing while trainers worked with the better fellas , that sort of thing and to be honest it shows with the the group of U14's im training at the moment.

At the start i was actually struggling for numbers, lads had given up etc etc and i took it upon myself to call to see the chaps and their parents to convince them to give it a go and now im averaging around 20 per session and come the summer would have 22 or so as there are a couple of lads in boarding school.

Anyway, i have 2 problems:

1. Im pretty much training football and hurling on my own most nights. There was a couple of lads meant to be with me but cant be relied upon. I know the drills etc from my own days but how do i fit in trying to develop the weaker players while trying to further develop the better players? On top of that one thing i didnt factor in is fitness training as to be honest i didnt think that would be an issue for 13 and 14 yr olds but i guess kids are different these days.

2. Is our County Board. To further enhance their reputation of incompetence they decided this year that the best way to grade U14's bearing in mind we have only go games at U12 is to look at how many players a Club has up to the age of U14 ie:how many kids are playing in their last year U14 and the more players you have the higher up you are graded. As a result we are up in the higher division. We are a small country Club and are up in the same division as the big town teams who have 30 odd fellas to pick from and Clubs who have been excelling at underage. As a result we have shipped 2 pretty bad hammerings in our first 2 games.

The question is should i keep going at this and hope we get a little bit less of a beating the next day or should pull them out and just play practice games for the rest of the summer?

Additionally there are at least 4 Clubs who have already pulled out of this grade as result of the messing. Has anyone every organised and ran their own league or compettition at underage level separate from the County Board. I know of a few other Clubs who are in the same predicament as ourselves so the appetite may be there for Clubs to go down that route?

Anyone else done anything similar or faced something similar?

I dont know

You need a couple of helpers for a start.
Tell the chairperson to sort it or you're going. Or even approach a few parents or a couple of minor club players?

Getting hammerings every week will do nothing for the confidence of young lads, but pulling them out of the competition isn't the best solution either. Think of the slagging they'll get from school mates from bigger clubs, and playing practice games week in, week out will become boring and wont prepare them for next year at all.

Running a few invitational blitzes might be a good solution. Our Club done this last year, knowing we'd had the best U12 team in years, inviting some of the top clubs in Ulster along, and our boys won it. I think it was a great idea.

Grading underage teams by numbers isn't the worst idea IMO. I'm from a DIV 3 Club that has always had big underage numbers, but were always placed in DIV 3 as that's where the senior team were. Yet, we still struggled. I could never understand why 12 year olds from our club weren't as good as those from the smaller Division 1 club up the road. All down to coaching I guess

dzer2

Know where you are coming from OP The grading is not ideal but that is how it is and you are stuck stuck with it. Firstly you need at least 3 lads over the team including yourself. Try and get a parent or two to join you if this fails try to get mates to come along. There is more fun in coaching than playing believe me. with regard playing the games talk to the other coaches in private let them know that your playing above your grade and that you will concede the game at the end ask them to play the weaker players against you if you are winning they will still have their strong lads to come on. The only way to improve the weaker lads is time and encouragement give them a bit of home work and test them on it every week.
The most important thing is get help do some coaching courses if you havent done already and make the drills age appropriate as drills for adults dont always suit younger groups.

Best of luck

D.

the kelt

I agree with the additional people to help, im reluctant to get parents involved as thats whats casusing a lot of problems at underage as things stand.

I have had an argument with the County Board in regards to the grading simply because at U14 level the teams actually play a pre season tournament in the Feile and surely the results here could be looked at when it comes to grading.

For example in the Feile we beat one team by 2 points, we drew with another team and got hockeyed in our 3rd game by a team that won it out and beat everyone else fairly well. The team that hockeyed us are a division below us, the team we beat are 2 divisions below us while the team we drew with are 3 divisions below us.

In fairness the players are still coming to the pitch, a couple of parents have said they are delighted as their kids are enjoying it a lot more compared to previous years but how long will that last getting hammered every week. And as i said it isnt just us, i have been informed of 4 other Clubs who have already pulled out. I could concede the points prior to the game but i actually done that in one game at half time against a Club that had 28 chaps. I said we would concede if they wanted to give their other fellas a run but then we started getting a few scores (still in no danger of even coming close to winning the game) and their manager brought on the stronger fellas again for the last 10 minutes just as our lads were enjoying it and getting into it and they ran in another few goals and some other Clubs wont be in a position to play weaker teams.

As a Club we have never had an underage team up in such a high division and im not worried about winning county finals just more concerned with keeping young fellas playing the game.