Derry GAA to revamp championship structure as part of five year development plan

Since last March, Cassidy, a member of Derry’s All Ireland team of 1993 and a championship winning club manager in three different counties, has headed up an eight strong team tasked by the County Board with exploring the coaching of Gaelic Games throughout Ireland. The committee met with officials from counties including Dublin and Kerry with a view to discovering best practise and formulating a specific plan to take Derry forward.

The result was an exciting and wide ranging five-year coaching and development strategy which seeks to overhaul league and championship football in Derry and provide greater opportunities for players at every age and grade. The plan was presented to clubs last week and Cassidy claims initial feedback has been positive but he stressed there will be no quick fix.

“The truth of the matter is we have a choice to make,” explained Cassidy, “We can either look at the GPO model, complain about it and ask questions about where we are going to get this or that to make it happen or, and what people need to understand is that this is a model that is coming down the road, so we can either be at the forefront and be seen as a model of best practise in terms of what we will hopefully be producing in 10 years time, or in 10 years we can try to catch up with the other counties who have been doing it for a number of years because we are no further forward.”

The new plan seeks to bring together aspects of the way the game is run in some of the top counties in the country and if implemented would mean some major changes to how the season operates in the county. Some of the key proposals include:

* Games Promotion Officers (GPO) in every club, part funded by clubs (50%) with full coaching audit of every club.

* League and championship link scrapped and promotion/relegation introduced to club championship.

* Senior championship group stages expanded to include new District teams made up of intermediate & Junior players.

* Go Games structure expanded and developed.

* Encourage teachers to take Foundation levels courses to support GPO work.

“We sat down and we looked at two models,” added Cassidy, “We looked at the Dublin model and we looked at Kerry. We have taken what we think are the best of those and put them together to produce a plan that takes in our own specific needs. It’s as simple as that. We looked at the two best models out there, pulled the best of what it is they are doing and matched that to what Derry do and Derry need to allow us to become better.

“This is about the clubs. We know that while we were commissioned to do this on behalf of the County Board, we all know to have good inter county teams, you need good club players. Clubs are the ones who are going to be producing your good players.

“The bottom line is, Derry has always been seen as a club orientated county so anything you put together has to be knocking on those doors. If you don’t get the clubs onside you are not going to progress anything.

“You are going to see clubs buying into it and clubs who in four or five years have not, they are going to see their next door neighbour progressing. It may not be at senior level right away but there are clubs where it would be very easy to see, in four or five years, a clear upsurge in the quality of young players they are producing.

“The club next door, they are going to notice and it will hurt them. Dublin said they had the same issues at the beginning and within four years, those clubs who hadn’t done it were knocking the door down asking for the help.

“If you get a GPO in your club who is constantly up-skilling coaches and others, there is only one way that club can go.”

FULL, IN-DEPTH LOOK A NEW PROPOSALS IN TUESDAY'S JOURNAL