Last weekend Longford Coaching and Games held its Gaelic Football Coaching Conference in Pearse Park on Saturday.

This proved to be a huge success with over 100 club coaches attending the various sessions ranging from U-6 right up to senior. We were blessed with a great day s weather which made life easier for all who attended and took part.

The day started off with Tadhg Fennin taking a nursery and U-8 session in the function room in Pearse Park and this was great in that it showed how simple a session can be for small children even with limited space.

Also at the same time on the field Eilish Gormley took a ladies session for U-14 and U-16 players. This was a hugely active session and the girls who took part really knew they were worked hard.

After these sessions Paul Earley and Nicholas Walsh took to the field do give sessions for U-14  U-16 and U-10  U12 s respectively. Both these sessions attracted large crowds with the emphasis on a games based approach to coaching.

The practical element of the day was brought to a conclusion by the very enthusiastic Tony Scullion who took the minor too senior session.

On completion of the on field sessions all the coaches reconvened to the function room for some much needed soup and sandwiches and this was followed by a question and answer style forum involving Paul Earley, Tony Scullion, Glenn Ryan, Eugene Mc Gee, John Bannon, Peter O Reilly, Pat Cahill and this was facilitated by John Duffy.

Longford Coaching and Games were delighted with how the day worked out and we would be delighted to get some feedback from any of the coaches who attended in relation to how we could improve activities for future sessions, please send any correspondents to either Peter O Reilly, Pearse Park, Battery Road, Longford or [email protected]

Also on the day we recorded all the sessions and we will be distributing a copy of the completed DVD to all the clubs who had coaches who attended.

For further details on the Coaching Conference please keep an eye on the Coaching section of the Longford GAA website www.longfordgaa.ie for sample games and handouts from the coach s sessions on the day. We would like to extend a big thank you to all the mentors and teams who assisted us on the day and we will include you all next week. Tweet

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