In the business of coaching, Monaghan GAA doesn't have to tug the forelock to any other county.

Ask anyone who's ever been involved in coaching at underage level and they'll tell you that for every bouquet thrown their way, a dozen brickbats have tested their resolve to stay the course.
Very few people who have earnestly tried to nurture the grass roots have come up smelling of roses all the time.
There's none so damning as the hurler on the ditch, of course, and at juvenile level, mammies and daddies grimacing from splinters-in-backsides syndrome abound.
More often than not, it's the whiff of sulphur rather than garlands that invariably wafts its way from GAA pitches in the wake of testing underage matches.
However in the Oriel county the local gaels are at one in crediting the county board's Coaching and Games Development Committee with greatly upskilling players and mentors countywide over the course of 2011.
The same Committee helped club Youth Officers and Coaching Officers hit the ground running on February 2nd in Cloghan by staging a joint Youth and Coaching Forum.
At this meeting the competition structures for under 12, 14 and 16 football grades was discussed and the draft league structure was presented.
The development squad system in Monaghan is in place for quite a number of years now the system served both football and hurling interests very well in 2011.
As the summer kicked in, so too did the various county development squad get-togethers.
On July 2nd, the County Coaching and Games Development Committee hosted an Inter-county blitz for U14 development squads which produced some excellent contests and no-mean standard of football.
The get-together featured teams from Monaghan, Down, Meath and Westmeath with each county fielding two separate teams.
The results of the games played by Monaghan's under 14s in Cloghan in the first week of July were as follows: Monaghan (1) 2-6 Westmeath (1) 1-10; Monaghan (2) 1-5 Westmeath (2) 2-3; Monaghan (1) 3-4 Meath (1) 4-3; Monaghan (2) 2-15 Meath (2) 2-3; Monaghan (1) 2-3 Down (1) 1-5; Monaghan (2) 0-12 Westmeath (2) 0-4.
A couple of weeks later, the under 14s made good their trip to Carlow to compete in a blitz against Wexford, Carlow (hosts) and Wicklow with some impressive performances.
This competition took the format of a semi-final/final with the two losers also playing off against each other with Monaghan taking on Wicklow in their first tie and duly advancing to the final on the back of a 3-10 to 1-7 scoreline.
In the next fixture Monaghan faced Wexford. Wexford had managed to defeat Carlow by a single point but they had much more to spare against the Oriel, running out 5-9 to 0-5 winners, thus giving manager Paddy Hughes (Tyholland) plenty to think about as he planned ahead.
The under 14 Development Squad also travelled to Burren GFC for a prestigious tournament where they fielded two teams against east and north Down with satisfactory results.
Meanwhile, the county under 15 football squad was kept busy too with a National Blitz which Monaghan hosted in Cloghan.
Two groups of three teams each took part with all games very evenly matched and extremely well contested by players who showed a lot of eagerness, skill and ambition.
In Group One, Monaghan were pitted alongside Laois and Longford while in Group Two, Louth locked horns with Westmeath and Antrim.
In their opening Group game, Monaghan overcame Laois by 1-6 to 0-5 and then followed that up in their second outing with a more comprehensive 4-9 to 0-4 victory over Longford.
Monaghan advanced as winners of Group One while Louth enjoyed similar success as a result of their outings in Group Two.
Later, Monaghan overcame the Wee County by two points, 2-9 to 2-7, to finish as outright winners of the six team blitz.
The same under 15 squad also took part in a blitz in August 20th in Cloghan when Down and Donegal formed the opposition.
The county U16 Football Development squad players were busy too, playing against Armagh in Breffni Park, Cavan in a competition organised by Cavan County Board.
They also competed in the qualifying stages of the 2011 Buncrana Cup at the Mid Ulster Sports Arena in Cookstown, County Tyrone.
Monaghan were pitted in the same group as Tyrone and Armagh and two very hard fought games ensued but both Tyrone and Armagh proved to be just too strong for the Oriel's finest on each occasion.
The U16 squad was again in action shortly afterwards in Johnstown Bridge Gaa club in Co, Kildare where they competed in a blitz.
In other development squad news, the county under 14 hurlers took part in an Ulster blitz at Cloghan.
All told, ten counties took part, including two Leinster teams, Meath and Laois with some great hurling being served up by all the participating teams.
Monaghan played against five teams in total and experienced mixed results with victories gained over Fermanagh and Armagh but defeat being suffered at the hands of Tyrone, Derry and Down.
Monaghan Hurling Development Squads also participated in under 14 and under 16 national blitzes held in Cavan and Cloghan.
The county was also represented in Ratoath for the national under 17 football blitz and while they came away without a win there were many positives to be taken from the experience.
First up for Monaghan was Meath a team that had been together over the summer preparing for the tournament.
It was end to end stuff and a typical Meath Monaghan affair with no quarter given and no let up throughout but in the end Meath's superior fitness told and they ran out winners on a score line of 0-7 to 0-5.
Thereafter, Monaghan went down by 0-7 to 1-9 to a much bigger Galway team that had comfortably beaten Meath in their opening game.
The blitz was a positive exercise and offered the minor management team a chance to run the rule over players looking to play county minor in 2012.
Away from the playing side of things, the needs of club coaches were well looked after by the Coaching and Games Development Committee during the year.
A Coach Education Programme was held between January, February and March and again between October and December.
Foundation and Award 1 Courses were delivered from January to early March and October to December to upskill the club coaches.
Foundation courses and Award 1 courses were also hosted throughout the county. When undertaking the Foundation Course each coach was obliged to complete the Child Protection Course.
Under the stewardship of Paul O'Connor, the 2011 Coach Education and Development Programme was devised to ensure all coaches in Monaghan were afforded the confidence and ability to support their players with suitable training and preparation for games.
The business of nurturing underage talent and promoting the stars of the future continued apace in county Monaghan in 2011.
During the past summer, a special day took place for all our under tens around the county as they travelled to Cloghan in their hundreds to take part in the All County Go-Games blitz.
The U10 Go-Games took the form of nine-aside games with two sections being devised, i.e. section 1, 9-30 to 11-30 and section 2, 11-45 to 1-30.
All told, a total of 27 clubs attended the blitz in Cloghan with 38 teams togging out, incorporating 390 young players.

All the teams present played three games and great sport was had by all over the course of a fine afternoon, weather-wise and sporting-wise.
Under the auspices of co-ordinators Colin Malone and Ann McKenna, the games were very competitive which helped make our first all-county blitz of 2011 highly successful.
Meanwhile on Saturday, April 2nd last a camogie/hurling coaching conference took place in Cloghan.
Major coaching figures such as Paudie Butler (National Hurling Coaching Officer), Mickey McCullagh (Ulster Council's Hurling Regional Development Officer), Ger Gribben (Regional Camogie Developmen Officer) and special guest John Leahy (former Tipp All-Star) were on hand to give advise to mentors working with players from under 10 to minor level.
In what was the Coaching and Games Development Committee's first such conference, some 15 club coaches were in attendance, representing five out of the county's seven hurling clubs.
The Easter Camps programme in 2011 proved to be a resounding success too with 106 children attending the camp in Scotstown and 102 similarly enjoying the camp in Ballybay.
Paul O'Connor and his camp co-ordinators; Colin Malone (Pearse Park, Ballybay) and Ann McKenna/Martin Corey (Kilmore training ground, Scotstown) should be rightly proud of their efforts.
The county's Cul Camps were once again a brillant success with 16 camps staged right across the county over the course of the month of July - with four camps being staged each week - with the first taking place in Carrick and the last one in Clones.
The camps catered for boys and girls aged between five and 13 years with Gaelic football, hurling and camogie coaching being made available in all camps and also handball wherever facilities for the game existed in particular camps.
Paul O'Connor and co. enlisted the services of quite a number of Monaghan county players from the world of Gaelic football, hurling, ladies football and camogie and they lined up to coach the youngsters during the summer with Christopher McGuinness (football), Nicola Fahy (ladies football), Padraig Dowdall (hurling) and Marie Greenan (camogie).
The camps helped form the backbone of what was another busy and successful year for the Coaching and Games Development fraternity under the chairmanship of Eamon O'Hara. Tweet

Most Read Stories