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Replying To MyOhMi: "Does anyone know what our coaching office / director of hurling etc etc does durning the summer months? .. This isn't a smart question as I'm genuinely interested? .. Are all their resources and times been put into development squads or what happens. For me (and I'm very involved in the club scene), I haven't seen or heard from county chairman or coiste chairman or any coaching officer since Wexford finished up its inter county season. I do realise it is holiday time etc but I am wondering if everything goes into our county teams at the expense of our club teams. I also have heard zero mention of the Kinnerick report or what should / will be achieved before the end of 2026 (which isn't too far away).
I have been at quiet a few tournaments over the last 3 months at U8 / U10 / U12 level and the standard of some of the teams is very very poor. For me this is a real wake up call for Wexford GAA - why are some clubs so far behind?" This is another one where I could answer any of several posts, but here goes anyway. The real elephant in the room is how we're such a dual county. I'll give an example.
Two years ago, we were visiting friends in Cork. Yer man there was over his club's U11 team and we went to see them play. I was with my own club's U10s at the time. The standard of hurling I saw from both sides there was far above anything I saw here that year, even allowing for the year's difference in age.
Thing is, they were a hurling-only club, in an area where very little football is played at all. My friend told me they had a full programme of Go Games from early March through to end of October - 26 games altogether, and obviously every one of them hurling. They'd begun training in mid-February, and he said they normally continued with a club tournament for a couple of weeks after the actual Go Games finished. That's basically nine months of activity, with every single session being 100% hurling. And then they'd be doing hurling, and nothing but hurling, for their schools as well.
By contrast, our Go Games programme that year was just 18 matches, from mid-April through to mid-September, with nine of them hurling and nine of them football. And clubs here are often criticised from certain quarters if they don't split training somewhere around 50/50 or even 60/40 at the younger ages. Easy to see then why the young lads in Cork were generally overall better hurlers than the ones here.
This is not to have a go at football. You could equally point out that we'll always struggle to reach our full potential in football too, so long as players spend so much time at hurling as well. It's just to give an example of how it really is the elephant.
Pikeman96 (Wexford) - Posts: 3842 - 07/08/2026 15:46:42
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Replying To MyOhMi: "Does anyone know what our coaching office / director of hurling etc etc does durning the summer months? .. This isn't a smart question as I'm genuinely interested? .. Are all their resources and times been put into development squads or what happens. For me (and I'm very involved in the club scene), I haven't seen or heard from county chairman or coiste chairman or any coaching officer since Wexford finished up its inter county season. I do realise it is holiday time etc but I am wondering if everything goes into our county teams at the expense of our club teams. I also have heard zero mention of the Kinnerick report or what should / will be achieved before the end of 2026 (which isn't too far away).
I have been at quiet a few tournaments over the last 3 months at U8 / U10 / U12 level and the standard of some of the teams is very very poor. For me this is a real wake up call for Wexford GAA - why are some clubs so far behind?" Our underage development squads arent finished up for the year yet.
Viking66 (Wexford) - Posts: 20425 - 07/08/2026 21:59:51
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Replying To Pikeman96: "This is another one where I could answer any of several posts, but here goes anyway. The real elephant in the room is how we're such a dual county. I'll give an example.
Two years ago, we were visiting friends in Cork. Yer man there was over his club's U11 team and we went to see them play. I was with my own club's U10s at the time. The standard of hurling I saw from both sides there was far above anything I saw here that year, even allowing for the year's difference in age.
Thing is, they were a hurling-only club, in an area where very little football is played at all. My friend told me they had a full programme of Go Games from early March through to end of October - 26 games altogether, and obviously every one of them hurling. They'd begun training in mid-February, and he said they normally continued with a club tournament for a couple of weeks after the actual Go Games finished. That's basically nine months of activity, with every single session being 100% hurling. And then they'd be doing hurling, and nothing but hurling, for their schools as well.
By contrast, our Go Games programme that year was just 18 matches, from mid-April through to mid-September, with nine of them hurling and nine of them football. And clubs here are often criticised from certain quarters if they don't split training somewhere around 50/50 or even 60/40 at the younger ages. Easy to see then why the young lads in Cork were generally overall better hurlers than the ones here.
This is not to have a go at football. You could equally point out that we'll always struggle to reach our full potential in football too, so long as players spend so much time at hurling as well. It's just to give an example of how it really is the elephant." But that is a perfect case of Wexford not doing enough for underage. That club in Cork is doing 9 months of hurling while we are only doing 5 months of Go games. Even with the split with football it's still 4 months less activity or 2 months worth of hurling that we are not doing or roughly 12 sessions and 4 or 5 games. When those young lads in Cork are hurling through those extra months what are our young lads doing? If the county board don't want to show a bit of enthusiasm towards underage and improving skills of players then how can the young lad at 10 years of age have any drive to?
I dont know if Rathnure or Oulart are doing 5 months of just hurling or if they are also doing extra but 5 months really is nothing.
I'd put the question out here for all the other posters. If the county board made clubs pick to either play hurling or football which code would you believe your club would go for?
camánouttathat (Wexford) - Posts: 102 - 07/08/2026 23:00:36
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Replying To camánouttathat: "But that is a perfect case of Wexford not doing enough for underage. That club in Cork is doing 9 months of hurling while we are only doing 5 months of Go games. Even with the split with football it's still 4 months less activity or 2 months worth of hurling that we are not doing or roughly 12 sessions and 4 or 5 games. When those young lads in Cork are hurling through those extra months what are our young lads doing? If the county board don't want to show a bit of enthusiasm towards underage and improving skills of players then how can the young lad at 10 years of age have any drive to?
I dont know if Rathnure or Oulart are doing 5 months of just hurling or if they are also doing extra but 5 months really is nothing.
I'd put the question out here for all the other posters. If the county board made clubs pick to either play hurling or football which code would you believe your club would go for?" We're already a hurling club but our lads are playing footballer for 4 separate clubs anyway.
Doylerwex (Wexford) - Posts: 4636 - 08/08/2026 10:18:45
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Replying To camánouttathat: "But that is a perfect case of Wexford not doing enough for underage. That club in Cork is doing 9 months of hurling while we are only doing 5 months of Go games. Even with the split with football it's still 4 months less activity or 2 months worth of hurling that we are not doing or roughly 12 sessions and 4 or 5 games. When those young lads in Cork are hurling through those extra months what are our young lads doing? If the county board don't want to show a bit of enthusiasm towards underage and improving skills of players then how can the young lad at 10 years of age have any drive to?
I dont know if Rathnure or Oulart are doing 5 months of just hurling or if they are also doing extra but 5 months really is nothing.
I'd put the question out here for all the other posters. If the county board made clubs pick to either play hurling or football which code would you believe your club would go for?" Just to point out that our Go Games programme has been expanded since then, and for U10s this year, the schedule involves 24 weeks of action between March 22 and October 4. Four free weekends along the way. So at least more is being done in that regard.
Ten football weeks (including a blitz), twelve hurling weeks (also including a blitz), and two other weeks where clubs had a choice of which they wanted to play. And certain football quarters gave out about that as they feared that most clubs would opt for extra hurling.
Meanwhile, those same lads in Cork continue to do nothing but hurling for all of that time.
And I don't mind answering your question. If my own club was made choose between the two and we called an EGM on it, I'd say the vote would be more than 90% for hurling.
Pikeman96 (Wexford) - Posts: 3842 - 08/08/2026 12:24:49
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Went down a rabbit hole of looking through this year's U10 Go Games book to see what clubs decided about those two weeks where they had a choice between hurling and football.
Of the dual clubs:
28 opted for football in both weeks, to keep things even at 12 fixtures each in both codes.
11 opted for hurling in both weeks, such that they'd have 14 hurling fixtures and 10 football ones.
Nobody opted for one of each.
Pikeman96 (Wexford) - Posts: 3842 - 08/08/2026 12:33:15
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Replying To camánouttathat: "But that is a perfect case of Wexford not doing enough for underage. That club in Cork is doing 9 months of hurling while we are only doing 5 months of Go games. Even with the split with football it's still 4 months less activity or 2 months worth of hurling that we are not doing or roughly 12 sessions and 4 or 5 games. When those young lads in Cork are hurling through those extra months what are our young lads doing? If the county board don't want to show a bit of enthusiasm towards underage and improving skills of players then how can the young lad at 10 years of age have any drive to?
I dont know if Rathnure or Oulart are doing 5 months of just hurling or if they are also doing extra but 5 months really is nothing.
I'd put the question out here for all the other posters. If the county board made clubs pick to either play hurling or football which code would you believe your club would go for?" Our club is genuinely dual.
Viking66 (Wexford) - Posts: 20425 - 08/08/2026 12:56:13
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Replying To camánouttathat: "But that is a perfect case of Wexford not doing enough for underage. That club in Cork is doing 9 months of hurling while we are only doing 5 months of Go games. Even with the split with football it's still 4 months less activity or 2 months worth of hurling that we are not doing or roughly 12 sessions and 4 or 5 games. When those young lads in Cork are hurling through those extra months what are our young lads doing? If the county board don't want to show a bit of enthusiasm towards underage and improving skills of players then how can the young lad at 10 years of age have any drive to?
I dont know if Rathnure or Oulart are doing 5 months of just hurling or if they are also doing extra but 5 months really is nothing.
I'd put the question out here for all the other posters. If the county board made clubs pick to either play hurling or football which code would you believe your club would go for?" That club in Cork isnt getting 9 months of county organised hurling at u10. They are doing alot of it by themselves. As are many clubs here in Wexford at u10. And as our County Board have been encouraging our clubs to do for the last few years. Our clubs u10s will have done 10 months or so in the last calendar year. Most of that at 2 training sessions a week. But, as Pikeman said, we are splitting that evenly between Football and Hurling.
There are clubs here that still arent doing that work though.
Viking66 (Wexford) - Posts: 20425 - 08/08/2026 13:13:35
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Replying To camánouttathat: "But that is a perfect case of Wexford not doing enough for underage. That club in Cork is doing 9 months of hurling while we are only doing 5 months of Go games. Even with the split with football it's still 4 months less activity or 2 months worth of hurling that we are not doing or roughly 12 sessions and 4 or 5 games. When those young lads in Cork are hurling through those extra months what are our young lads doing? If the county board don't want to show a bit of enthusiasm towards underage and improving skills of players then how can the young lad at 10 years of age have any drive to?
I dont know if Rathnure or Oulart are doing 5 months of just hurling or if they are also doing extra but 5 months really is nothing.
I'd put the question out here for all the other posters. If the county board made clubs pick to either play hurling or football which code would you believe your club would go for?" I would say from experience one of the reasons for shorter season in wexfird is clashes with other sports .
Teams would not have the numbers to sustain a year long programme as most parents want their children to partake in other spoets and activities .
The fest hurlers are best footballers soccer players rugby players golfers etc so lots of competition for the chaps to . With each sport demanding more buy in year on year
At present the gaa games profile is nt the most attractive prosoect in wexford no child will understand that to make us better they have to do more . U cant force them into .
To keep training over winter u need games to keep them interested . They dont understand the urgency so its us that have to make it a better more attractive prospect . School buy in is the real key and that needs teachers snd principals to buy in to a programme.
Formertownie (Wexford) - Posts: 656 - 08/08/2026 13:37:23
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Replying To Formertownie: "I would say from experience one of the reasons for shorter season in wexfird is clashes with other sports .
Teams would not have the numbers to sustain a year long programme as most parents want their children to partake in other spoets and activities .
The fest hurlers are best footballers soccer players rugby players golfers etc so lots of competition for the chaps to . With each sport demanding more buy in year on year
At present the gaa games profile is nt the most attractive prosoect in wexford no child will understand that to make us better they have to do more . U cant force them into .
To keep training over winter u need games to keep them interested . They dont understand the urgency so its us that have to make it a better more attractive prospect . School buy in is the real key and that needs teachers snd principals to buy in to a programme." Teachers and Principles will only buy in if they are staunch GAA people already. And even at that if they have young families theres only so much they can do outside of school hours.
Viking66 (Wexford) - Posts: 20425 - 08/08/2026 15:31:17
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A few things….
I don't know how many clubs are now playing for longer in the season at underage level compared to what they used to be doing; if this is to have any effect on us as a county, it will take time to bear fruit (If it does bear fruit)
If we were starting from scratch, you'd imagine we'd be better off being like other counties and having specialist hurling clubs in one area and then specialist football clubs in another area, what we're doing now doesn't really do much for either hurling or football IMO
However, we're not starting from scratch and any proposals have to take into account the history, culture, and tradition of the county; you build around that rather than tearing it down and starting again
Even if we played GAA for as many weeks as other counties, we still wouldn't be doing as much hurling as them but at the same time, there are advantages that come from playing football, might be minor advantages but they're still advantages. Players should be better at playing a running game, players should be fitter, and players should be more athletic if we expand the season even if some of the extra games are football rather than hurling
You need to be good technically to be a good hurler but it's hard all the same to be a good hurler without being a fit hurler. I know some on here like to say soccer is the enemy but really we're our own enemy. If we expand our season and lads are going to all the extra sessions, then it doesn't really matter if they're playing soccer on different nights, it'd make them even fitter if anything
Also, I think it's a massive help at underage level to play multiple sports. If you've someone who plays different sports all the time, they're going to be fit but they're also developing and working on different muscles, I know athleticism can be genetic and it can be down to S&C but I also think some of it is down to playing different sports the whole time, Ryan O'Donoghue did soccer and boxing as well as football, he's a good example, maybe I'm wrong about playing different sports leading to better athleticism
ElGranSenor (Wexford) - Posts: 1479 - 08/08/2026 17:31:22
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Replying To ElGranSenor: "A few things….
I don't know how many clubs are now playing for longer in the season at underage level compared to what they used to be doing; if this is to have any effect on us as a county, it will take time to bear fruit (If it does bear fruit)
If we were starting from scratch, you'd imagine we'd be better off being like other counties and having specialist hurling clubs in one area and then specialist football clubs in another area, what we're doing now doesn't really do much for either hurling or football IMO
However, we're not starting from scratch and any proposals have to take into account the history, culture, and tradition of the county; you build around that rather than tearing it down and starting again
Even if we played GAA for as many weeks as other counties, we still wouldn't be doing as much hurling as them but at the same time, there are advantages that come from playing football, might be minor advantages but they're still advantages. Players should be better at playing a running game, players should be fitter, and players should be more athletic if we expand the season even if some of the extra games are football rather than hurling
You need to be good technically to be a good hurler but it's hard all the same to be a good hurler without being a fit hurler. I know some on here like to say soccer is the enemy but really we're our own enemy. If we expand our season and lads are going to all the extra sessions, then it doesn't really matter if they're playing soccer on different nights, it'd make them even fitter if anything
Also, I think it's a massive help at underage level to play multiple sports. If you've someone who plays different sports all the time, they're going to be fit but they're also developing and working on different muscles, I know athleticism can be genetic and it can be down to S&C but I also think some of it is down to playing different sports the whole time, Ryan O'Donoghue did soccer and boxing as well as football, he's a good example, maybe I'm wrong about playing different sports leading to better athleticism" Yeah I agree multi-sports is the way to go.
Now I don't want to cast aspirtions on anyone but you'd often see a retired county hurler from even the last decade or so balloon in weight when they retire. Footballers of the same ilk seem to be more streamlined. I put that solely down to the fact football requires more physical disipline, well definitely ten years ago anyway.
Likes of Jack O'Shea, Mick O'Connell, Colm O'Rourke fit for their age. You'd often see younger heavier set lads involved in coaching in hurling.
beano (Wexford) - Posts: 1568 - 08/08/2026 20:17:04
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Replying To Viking66: "That club in Cork isnt getting 9 months of county organised hurling at u10. They are doing alot of it by themselves. As are many clubs here in Wexford at u10. And as our County Board have been encouraging our clubs to do for the last few years. Our clubs u10s will have done 10 months or so in the last calendar year. Most of that at 2 training sessions a week. But, as Pikeman said, we are splitting that evenly between Football and Hurling.
There are clubs here that still arent doing that work though." That Cork club was getting seven and a half months of an organised games programme at the time, from early March through to end October. The "lot" of it the nine they were doing themselves was starting training about three weeks before their first match, and then after the last match, taking about another three weeks to run a club tournament where all their own players were divided into teams to play against each other in a "mini league" sort of thing for a set of medals.
Our clubs at the time were getting only five months of organised games, from mid April to mid September. And while they're now getting six and a half months, that's still a month less than in Cork, and it's still to cover both codes.
Pikeman96 (Wexford) - Posts: 3842 - 08/08/2026 21:01:57
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Multi sports is the way to go if you are happy being a top class footballer and an average hurler.
Trump2 (Wexford) - Posts: 9 - 08/08/2026 21:02:03
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Replying To Trump2: "Multi sports is the way to go if you are happy being a top class footballer and an average hurler." And whats wrong with that?
beano (Wexford) - Posts: 1568 - 08/08/2026 22:35:16
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Replying To Pikeman96: "Went down a rabbit hole of looking through this year's U10 Go Games book to see what clubs decided about those two weeks where they had a choice between hurling and football.
Of the dual clubs:
28 opted for football in both weeks, to keep things even at 12 fixtures each in both codes.
11 opted for hurling in both weeks, such that they'd have 14 hurling fixtures and 10 football ones.
Nobody opted for one of each." Just as a matter of interest, out of those 11 clubs who opted for hurling do you know how many are currently senior hurling clubs?
camánouttathat (Wexford) - Posts: 102 - 09/08/2026 04:35:09
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Replying To Viking66: "Teachers and Principles will only buy in if they are staunch GAA people already. And even at that if they have young families theres only so much they can do outside of school hours." Absolutely. Dee and Mogie would speak of the principal they had in national school been mad for hurling and had them out playing during school time. Did wonders for the Anne's in the long run
camánouttathat (Wexford) - Posts: 102 - 09/08/2026 04:41:15
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Replying To Viking66: "Our club is genuinely dual." As someone who might see it first hand, do you think you are been hindered in both codes due to 50/50 split of time with each?
camánouttathat (Wexford) - Posts: 102 - 09/08/2026 04:46:57
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Replying To Trump2: "Multi sports is the way to go if you are happy being a top class footballer and an average hurler." Thats nonsense. Nearly all of our best hurlers in the recent past played Football. Chin played intercounty Football and LOI soccer, Mogie and Matt O'Hanlon won a Leinster u21 Football title, Dee O'Keefe won a Senior county medal, Rory played in an AI A Schools Football Hogan Cup final.
In other counties Brian Hayes could play intercounty Football for Cork if he wanted hes one of their top club Footballers, Gearoid Hegarty played Football for Limerick, Daithi Burke has won 4 Senior AI club Football titles. Conor Cleary has won 3 county Senior Football titles with his club. Noel and John Mcgrath have won as many county Senior titles in Football as for hurling. Eoghan O'Donnell has played Senior Football and Hurling for Dublin. Dessie Hutchinson played professional soccer. There are top hurlers from every county in Ireland who are good club footballers or have played soccer to a high level.
And there are plenty of hurlers around the country who never played soccer or Football but arent top hurlers either.
Viking66 (Wexford) - Posts: 20425 - 09/08/2026 10:15:45
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Replying To Trump2: "Multi sports is the way to go if you are happy being a top class footballer and an average hurler." And what's wrong with that?
I used to think that rugby was the most insular sport in the country in terms of auld lads pushing their chaps to play that and that only, but it seems the hurling fraternity are just as bad.
beano (Wexford) - Posts: 1568 - 09/08/2026 10:19:38
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