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Primary Report AGM 2008 |
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Annual Report 2008. Primary Section Over 300 boys aged between 5 and 10 registered as Rockies during 2008. Each age group is provided for and over 50 coaches give a year round commitment to the club in order to coach these children in the skills of hurling. We had regular attendances of 200 on Saturday mornings, peaking at 250 on several occasions. About 200 attend the Saturday indoor hurling programmes at St Anthony’s School Hall in Ballinlough and at the Blackrock Hurling Hall. The Blackrock Super leagues The Rocky Super league competitions were again the main feature of our Saturday mornings. These resulted in over 30 games being played, with the Cup Finals providing great excitement. Huge crowds turned up for many of the games. Almost 250 boys enjoyed the regular matches with each child having the opportunity to play in four games. The leagues have really become the highlights of the season and they are always played in a great spirit of passion and commitment by the children encouraged by the Blackrock coaches and their parents. These super leagues are sponsored by Carey Tool Hire, who have maintained the long tradition of practical support from what is our longest established sponsor which began under the late Joe Carey. Ray Cummins visited Church Road and presented the medals to the 2000 and 2001 panels on 28th June last and enjoyed his visit. Ken Carey also attended and was delighted with the competition. We had a brilliant competition for the 6 year old boys in September, a total of 55 took part, Fergal Ryan and Jimmy Brohan presented the medals. A feature in 2008 was the continuation of the Micro Sports Indoor Leagues at St. Anthony’s School where over 60 games of indoor hurling were played in the competition. Our thanks to Victor Morgan of Micro Sports for his support. Cllr. Deirdre Clune TD again presented a cheque on behalf of her father, Mr Peter Barry to support the huge effort being put in to the development of hurling in our catchment area. We are very appreciative of their support. The progress of our panels. Both under 10sides reached the finals of the Mick Cashman Cup, which was excellently organised city wide as a series of blitzes by Jodi Crowley and the under 10 coaching group under Brendan Cunningham. The climax of this competition took place on Saturday 27th September when the finals were played in the presence of the Cashman family. The hurling was of a very high standard. The visiting teams contribute hugely to the success of this tournament and we would like to complement the St. Finbarr’s club, Sarsfields, Eire Og, and Ballinhassig. Ballinhassig picked up the Plate. The under 10s also performed very well in various challenge matches during the year including a trip to the Inter City League in which they fielded three teams. The Under 9s and 8s also gave a good account of themselves in their various challenge and friendly games and both coaching groups deserve great praise. There are excellently organised groups at under 6 and under 7 and their coaches report great progress. All the groups are very well looked after each Saturday by the very dedicated coaches who are the unsung heroes of the club. The very young boys and girls have had a great time with Joe, Fiona, Oisin, Ailbhe, Niamh and Niall and Aaron all year. We would like to wish Joe Phibbs a speedy recovery from a serious operation which he had during the year and it was lovely to see his return to the club to meet his old friends on Saturday 15th November 2008. Indoor hurling continued through the Winter and Spring. We wish to thank Flor O’Sullivan, Principal of St. Anthony’s School, Ballinlough for the use of the hall. Developments during 2008 Full sets of SAQ equipment have been purchased and are now in constant use across all the coaching panels. A further 18 coaches in the Primary section received their SAQ Level 1 Qualifications during the year. Ten newer coaches received their Foundation badges. The schools of the area are being catered for under a hurling coaching scheme developed in conjunction with Coiste Oiluna of the County Board. Sliotars and hurleys have been made available to all schools. We received a grant from Pobal to undertake this work. This was extended to cover the boys and girls of the Ursulines. We have recently added St. Anthony’s School Ballinlough to the coaching schedule. We must ensure that hurling continues to thrive in the local Primary Schools and the Blackrock Hurling Club must devote whatever resources it takes to ensure the continuing growth of hurling. We are extremely grateful to Kevin O’Callaghan of Coiste Oiliuna for his support and assistance in this area. If the GAA loses the schools, we lose the youth of our community. www.blackrockhurling.org The ongoing maintenance of the Rocky website was undertaken by John Green and is proving to be of immense benefit to the young Rockies. It is vital that all sections would submit material, fixtures, results, plans or reports of matches. It is up to each section to submit their details and match reports to the site. Unfortunately it wasn’t done in 2008, unless people supply the information, regular visitors to the site cannot get access to the information. Our thanks to John Green for his efforts, the site can be viewed at www.blackrockhurling.org, John can be contacted at johngreen@eircom.net . Corporate Night. A very special thanks to the Blackrock Corporate Night underage fundraising committee who made a major success of the 2008 event. It was the outstanding social event of the year. Well done to Brendan Cunningham, John Cormack, Harry Canning, Tom Riordan, Anne Healy, Tony Linehan, Fergus O’Brien, Andrew Guerin, Brother Patrick Fitzgibbon! Mention should be made also of the large contribution of Scally’s Super Valu towards the club as part of their sponsorship deal with Blackrock and St.Michaels. We ask that all members try to support our sponsors. Saturday morning at the Blackrock Pavilion Many thanks to Lilian Daly, Kathleen Laide, Eithne O’Mahony, Mary Murphy and Diane O’Sullivan, Jean Hogan and Ann Ahern who run this very important operation. The financial contribution made to funds from this coffee shop is also quite substantial. Myles Balfe and his staff have cooperated totally with our efforts on Saturday mornings and we would like to thank them. May, Marie and Jim O’Brien and Brian Roche look after the Blackrock Sports shop which enable parents to purchase Rocky jerseys and club gear. May O’Brien again did a wonderful job supplying jerseys when required for our teams. Thanks to Jane Lenahan for sending in the club notes to the Echo. Blanche Mulconry and Dave Cummins take care of registrations, while Pat Roche supplies the youngsters with the hurleys and helmets. We are appreciative also of the great work of Aidan Long in sorting out pitches for us, and to David Barry for fitting us in to already difficult schedules. Colm Daly has been outstanding all year and extremely helpful. Coaching. The club is very fortunate to have the services of very dedicated, committed and hard working group of coaches who turn out all through the year to work with the youngsters. These are extraordinary men and women who contribute so much to the Blackrock Hurling Club, they are irreplaceable and show what the true spirit of a GAA club is about. A pleasing feature of 2008 has been the number of young people who continue to help with all aspects of Saturday mornings, in particular Colm Daly, Donal Murray, Oisin O’Mahony, Ailbhe Crowley, Ciaran Tobin, Niamh Wedel, David Vaughan, Martyn Griffin, Ian White, Stephen O’Brien, Aaron Kennedy, Niall Foley and Cian Hartnett who have assisted with various aspects of Saturday morning work. If there are more who wish to volunteer, just talk to us any morning. They are becoming absolutely vital to the future of the Blackrock coaching and administrative structures. The Primary coaches who helped out in 2008. Joe Phibbs Paul O’Callaghan Conor Butler Orla O’Shea Donal Moynihan. Jodi Crowley John Kennedy Jim Brohan Brendan Cunningham Sean Logue Ruari Wedel Niamh Wedel Ailbhe Crowley Donal Murray John O’Brien Tim Mullane Donal O’Leary Donal O’Mahony Colm Daly Martin Hurley Allan Russell Donal Buckley Ciaran Tobin Maurice Griffin. Fiona Kavanagh Fergus O’Brien John Vaughan Martin O’Sullivan Aidan Lougheed Ian White Eugene Heaney Stephen O’Brien Tom Kilcommons Tom Cashman Tom Riordan Oisin O’Mahony Michael Scannell Stephen O’Brien John Kennedy David Madden Niall Foley Martyn Griffin. David Vaughan Declan McCarthy Tom Cashman Colm Fitzgerald EamonnO’Flynn The officers of the Juvenile section, Brother Patrick Fitzgibbon Chairperson, Ann Carroll and John Vaughan, Runai, James O’Brien, Treasurer, JP Devine Vice Chairperson, Tom Daly Equipment Officer and John Kennedy Child Protection Officer provided huge practical assistance, advice and support during the year. Thanks also to St. Michael’s, especially Club Chairperson Pat Giltinan and Eamonn Kiely for their cooperation during the year. The Blackrock Camogie Club were also helpful during the year. Also we are grateful to all the officers of the Blackrock Senior Hurling Committee and other sections for their practical assistance and encouragement during the year and to the officers of the Management Committee for their work in providing facilities and support. Sport is fun! We should continue to organise regular friendly games for all our teams in the Primary Section, where the entire emphasis of the coaches, children and parents should be on every player receiving an opportunity to play the game in a happy and supportive environment. We are dealing with young children and we must ensure they are well looked after and that they have happy and positive memories of their time at Church Road. We remain concerned that too much emphasis is being placed on winning and introducing competitiveness for children at very young ages. We believe this may contribute to the big fall off of children from sport later. Issues such as player “burnout” also arise as kids these days are playing many different codes. We are glad to see the recent comments from the GAA and Bord Na nOg in this regard. A “win at all costs mentality” at these very young age groups is wrong. Our broad approach, which may not appeal to everyone, will continue in 2009. However, the children must also be encouraged to practice as much as possible as the learning and use of hurling skills requires regular effort. 2008 has been a good year for our section; we have consolidated our position, and ensured that young hurlers continue to flock to Church Road. Seamus Hartnett. Gerard O’Mahony. Chairperson Hon Secretary. December 08. Primary Section Blackrock National Hurling Club.
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