2010 Ulster GAA Elite Camp
The annual Ulster Council 3 day Elite camp took place on the 5th – 7th July in the Sports Science facilities of the University of Ulster, Jordanstown.
The camp brought together 90 (Under 16) players in total, forty five from each code of Football and Hurling, which were made up of the most promising players from each of the 9 counties in Ulster.
Throughout the duration of the camp, the players benefited from the knowledge and expertise of the Ulster Council staff while simultaneously gaining access to the world class facilities that are in the University.
The players are afforded the opportunity to improve their own knowledge in different areas which will ultimately enable them to improve their own game, such as:
- Functional Movement Analysis
- Nutrition/Hydration
- Fitness Testing
- Lifestyle issues
- Dynamic Warm-Ups
- Skills Testing
- Personal Development Planning
In addition, the players were videoed performing a few key skills based tasks such as tackling and frontal blocking. They immediately got video feedback and then went and performed the skill again to improve in the areas required.
On top of that, there were field based sessions which was focused on Skill Development and areas covered were Kicking for possession/scores, Tackling/Blocking, Ball retention/support play, Long striking/striking on the run and High catching. Some players had Heart Rate Monitors attached for these sessions as well as for the Full Sided games which were played to a very high standard and later they got feedback on how hard they worked during the sessions.
Each year, we also invite a leading figure within the world of Gaelic Games to come and give a talk to the players. Past camps have seen Kieran Mc Geeney, Terence Mc Naughton, Sean Cavanagh, Peter Canavan, Neil McManus and this year we had the honour of having Michael Murphy who indeed was on the camp himself in 2005, and like our past speakers he gave the players some food for thought by describing what he feels it takes to get you to the top.
Indicative of the effect that these camps have on our youth of today is provided when a lot of the past players of the camp have gone on to represent their county at minor, U21 and even at Senior levels. Indeed, one of them, Conan Grugan who is a current Tyrone minor footballer, was reflecting recently on his own experiences at the camp in 2008.
“In the summer of 2008, I was selected, with 44 other footballers from across Ulster, to attend the Ulster U16 Elite 3 day training camp. The camp was based in the Jordanstown campus, allowing us to avail of the state of the art facilities which included a 3G pitch and high level fitness testing equipment. On the first day of the camp we were put through rigorous fitness tests followed by feedback on how we could improve each aspect of fitness if we wanted to compete at the highest level.
This was followed by seminars, delivered by various specialists, on how to improve our nutrition and lifestyle; invaluable advice which I still use today. On the second day we received expert coaching from the likes of Diarmuid Marsden and Ryan Mellon, followed by a session on how to prevent injury from physiotherapist Chris McNicholl. Throughout the camp much emphasis was placed on leadership, both on and off the field, and on the third day the players participated in a number of team building exercises.
The camp enabled me to meet and bond with players from other counties and allowed me the challenge to compete against many highly talented players. This experience allowed us, at a young age, the unique opportunity to live like professional athletes for three days and, if anything, the camp was worth going to, just to hear Tony Scullion’s inspirational speech at the end of the three days!”
