Development Day for provincial & county coaching staff

Eugene Young, Ulster GAA Director of Coaching & Games, Ger McTavish, GAA Diversity & Inclusion Officer, Lauren O’Malley, Keynote speaker, Garret Coyle, Chair, Ulster GAA Coaching & Games Committee

Ulster GAA yesterday hosted a Development Day for provincial & county Coaching staff in the Glenavon Hotel, Cookstown – the first gathering of its kind since before the Covid 19 pandemic.

The focus was on strengthening the GAA coaching family across the province by consolidating relationships between units after the long layoff and refocusing on the vision to deliver inclusive, quality programmes.

There were over 100 staff in attendance with coaches from all nine counties present, along with GAA staff employed in clubs, schools and higher education. There was a wide range of presentation topics and follow up group discussions, including embedding disability programmes, hurling & handball programme challenges, primary schools coaching research and success in football statistics

Guest speakers on the day were Ger McTavish, GAA Diversity and Inclusion Officer, who spoke about engaging with disadvantaged groups, and Lauren O’Malley, who told her inspirational story of overcoming adversity to become an extreme endurance athlete.

The day proved to be a very worthy get together for all the coaching staff ahead of the planned Ulster GAA Coaching & Games Development Conference that will be held at Ulster University in early November.