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The Bord na nOg Convention in the Auburn Lodge Hotel heard chairman Sean O’Halloran hit out at inter-county managers who castigate Clare underage hurling

This article is from page 88 of the 2007-12-11 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 88 JPG

THE keynote address to the Bord na nOg Convention in the Auburn Lodge Hotel on Thursday night by chairman Sean O’Halloran carried with it a veiled attack on high profile county managers who have criticised underage hurling in the county.

And, it could be that Ger Loughnane was the main target in the line of O’Halloran’s fire, given that earlier this year the former Clare manager lowered his blade on underage struc- tures in Clare.

“When you see a coach with an under 14 team and he’s putting fellas over hurdles and he’s running long laps,’ said Loughnane in a broadside before Galway’s All-Ireland qualifier against Clare in Cusack Park.

‘“There’s no staged development here in Clare. When young lads go from under 14, the next thing they’re

doing senior training. Next thing they’re totally pissed off with this kind of stuff.

“IT see a coach in north Clare and I saw a team he’d been coaching for three years and a least half of them were holding the hurley with the wrong hand on top. This is madness. There is no supervision whatsoever so how are you going to have devel- opment,” added Loughnane.

It wasn’t his first time to launch a scathing attack on underage struc- tures in the county, as he famously told The Clare People in 2005 that “they’re running off games. I think it’s absolutely scandalous that an un- der 14 club team beaten in the cham- pionship in May will not be playing again until next year. It’s a complete joke.

“The worst thing is this — the hurl- ing officer, who is elected in Clare, can be totally incompetent and has

been for the past 10 or 15 years and yet this officer is elected year after year just because he wants a position on the executive.” ;

Two years on, the Bord na nOg Con- vention was when Sean O’Halloran hit back. “It is regrettable in the high- est echelons of team management see fit to castigate underage hurling in this county on a regular basis,” he said in his annual report.

‘Their undoubted ability and exper- tise would be much better served by adopting a more proactive approach to the promotion and development of our games at this tender age.

O’ Halloran the evoked an old Irish proverb when saying “Mar a deir- eann an sean-fhocail ‘Is are scath a

ye]

chéile a mhaireann na daoine’.

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