Juvinelle gaa advice

Louiseloume

Hi I'm looking for rational advice in regards to juvenile gaa. So my son is 9, 10 in May. He's played hurling and football with our local club since he was 6, has never missed a match or training. Normally around late Feb or early March the new training season resumes. This year I hadn't heard anything about training and presumed maybe because of the bad weather there wasn't any.

I found out through some parents that training had resumed but only for a few of the u10s team. There had been an u12s D team set up and they were on that team and been trained by the u10s coaches.

I questioned why my son wasn't asked to try out for it and I was fobed off with an excuse that he has scouts on a Monday night when they train and told they only needed a few players from u10s anyway so there was no try outs. Then more and more parents started to tell me their children were on the team so it went from a few to most of the u10s team and alot of those players were also in scouts on Monday night.

My son started coming home from school questioning me about why all his friends were on this team why wasn't he, was he not good enough. He's very down about it and it's making me angry. He's one of the oldest on the u10s team so it can't be age. He's not the best player but he's by far not the worst and all 4 of the coaches kids are on it.

I'm angry at the moment. But the question is should I be? Or is this normal in the gaa. I don't know I've never been apart of anything gaa related before my son started with the club. It's a small village so I don't want to blow my fuse and fall out with anyone. Advice?

Richmond Ultra

Get in touch with the juvenile committee or the child welfare officer and they will sort whatever the problem is out quickly.

Louiseloume

Richmond Ultra wrote: »

Get in touch with the juvenile committee or the child welfare officer and they will sort whatever the problem is out quickly.

Thanks Richmond ultra I hope in doing that i don't make enemies though......

The Lost Sheep

Louiseloume wrote: »

Hi I'm looking for rational advice in regards to juvenile gaa. So my son is 9, 10 in May. He's played hurling and football with our local club since he was 6, has never missed a match or training. Normally around late Feb or early March the new training season resumes. This year I hadn't heard anything about training and presumed maybe because of the bad weather there wasn't any.

I found out through some parents that training had resumed but only for a few of the u10s team. There had been an u12s D team set up and they were on that team and been trained by the u10s coaches.

I questioned why my son wasn't asked to try out for it and I was fobed off with an excuse that he has scouts on a Monday night when they train and told they only needed a few players from u10s anyway so there was no try outs. Then more and more parents started to tell me their children were on the team so it went from a few to most of the u10s team and alot of those players were also in scouts on Monday night.

My son started coming home from school questioning me about why all his friends were on this team why wasn't he, was he not good enough. He's very down about it and it's making me angry. He's one of the oldest on the u10s team so it can't be age. He's not the best player but he's by far not the worst and all 4 of the coaches kids are on it.

I'm angry at the moment. But the question is should I be? Or is this normal in the gaa. I don't know I've never been apart of anything gaa related before my son started with the club. It's a small village so I don't want to blow my fuse and fall out with anyone. Advice?

There shouldnt be "try outs" for a side like that anyway as its under 12 and very much a development grade
Possibly it is only for the strongest under 10s but will team primarily be made up of kids who are under 11 or under 12 so the stronger under 10s are just helping make up the numbers.
Go to the clubs underage chairperson/child welfare officer and ask for a clarification in whats going on.

Louiseloume wrote: »

Thanks Richmond ultra I hope in doing that i don't make enemies though......

Dont go into meeting with anyone thinking like that.

Louiseloume

Thanks for the advice and I just presumed there would be try outs for it. I read in the gaa code of best practice for youth sports that coaches should ensure all those eligible to participate in any team in the club are provided with the opportunity to do so. Maybe that's the older categories. Thanks anyway I'll contact the child welfare officer for the club for clarification.

The Lost Sheep

Louiseloume wrote: »

Thanks for the advice and I just presumed there would be try outs for it. I read in the gaa code of best practice for youth sports that coaches should ensure all those eligible to participate in any team in the club are provided with the opportunity to do so. Maybe that's the older categories. Thanks anyway I'll contact the child welfare officer for the club for clarification.

There ideally wouldnt and shouldnt be tryouts for kids that young.
All eligible for a team should have opportunity to play but that doesnt really include kids playing up grades like in this case with under 10s and playing under 12s

Colt Knost

The Lost Sheep wrote: »

There ideally wouldnt and shouldnt be tryouts for kids that young.
All eligible for a team should have opportunity to play but that doesnt really include kids playing up grades like in this case with under 10s and playing under 12s

Realistically in a rural area kids from U10 grade will be needed to make up U12 teams ( particularly if there is a second or third team in the club). The club will be obliged ( and would want to ) to play all kids up to age ( U11 or U12) and make up the numbers with remaining U10s if they are up to the standard. I really dont think you have any reason to be going to a child welfare officer or anyone else once your son is being accommodated at his own age grade.

Louiseloume

Colt Knost wrote: »

Realistically in a rural area kids from U10 grade will be needed to make up U12 teams ( particularly if there is a second or third team in the club). The club will be obliged ( and would want to ) to play all kids up to age ( U11 or U12) and make up the numbers with remaining U10s if they are up to the standard. I really dont think you have any reason to be going to a child welfare officer or anyone else once your son is being accommodated at his own age grade.

Thanks. The unfairness of it all is something I'll have to explain to my child. When there's 12 players on an u10s team and they take 9 of them to make up an u12s D team. It is unfair on the few left out.

Gravelly

As someone who has coached underage GAA and soccer, and has had my own kids all the from 6's up to 16+ in GAA (and soccer, athletics etc.), I can say I'm not surprised by this. Juvenile coaching in all sports in Ireland, but especially GAA, is rife with "who-you-know-ism". I know of several underage teams that never reached their potential, and good players who dropped out, because good players were sidelined in favour of somone's son/nephew/neighbours youngfella etc. I know of one club where the U13A team a couple of years ago was entirely made up of the sons or nephews of "good club men" and the B team was everyone else, and the B team was far better than the A!
I eventually gave up involvement in GAA partly because of it. It goes on a bit in soccer, but nowhere near as much, and, unlike GAA, in soccer there isn't the same culture of omerta in the clubs - if you rock the boat in most GAA clubs, you aren't thanked for it.

Colt Knost

Louiseloume wrote: »

Thanks. The unfairness of it all is something I'll have to explain to my child. When there's 12 players on an u10s team and they take 9 of them to make up an u12s D team. It is unfair on the few left out.

Its not ideal and most coaches will try their best to play as many as possible but it is very difficult to manage the numbers. I really do think that once a team is out of a players age grade that there isnt any wrongdoing.

PARlance

Louiseloume wrote: »

Thanks. The unfairness of it all is something I'll have to explain to my child. When there's 12 players on an u10s team and they take 9 of them to make up an u12s D team. It is unfair on the few left out.

That's just part of life / sport I'm afraid. I had to tell 8 adults that they didn't make a match-day squad on Sunday and it's not easy on this side and not easy on them either.

Kids develop at different rates. There are plenty of examples of late bloomers who dealt with disappointment, knuckled down and improved. That's what I would be telling my kid.

You could probably find an example but the likes of James Horan never got picked for Mayo underage but went on to play and manage the Senior team. Beckham was told he was too small, weak as a kid to play for his Country.... loads of examples out there. Turn a potential negative into a positive if possible.

nice_guy80

a lot comes back to the fact there aren't enough coaches
most parents don't want to know!

as in, if a club wanted to field a second team, who is going to look after them for training and games?

arctictree

I think small clubs all around the country have to deal with this. You have an u12 team (or whatever) and they are a bit short on players for a match so they call on a few of the u10s. Parents get a wind of this and then are pissed off that their child isn't chosen. You cant choose them all!

Louiseloume

nice_guy80 wrote: »

a lot comes back to the fact there aren't enough coaches
most parents don't want to know!

as in, if a club wanted to field a second team, who is going to look after them for training and games?

There's 4 teams in u12s.........a b c and the newly formed d team

Colt Knost

Louiseloume wrote: »

There's 4 teams in u12s.........a b c and the newly formed d team

Thats not really the point though. Reality is a certain amount of U10s will be needed to make up the numbers whether its 1,2,3,4 or more U12 teams in a club. They wont be able to bring them all as they have to give playing time to all on the panel.