The Secret GAA Coach: Should the 'gifted' nine-year-old come before the good of the team?

"...the modern reality is that it is becoming difficult to get former top-level players to coach teams, leaving the club with no alternative but to recruit well-meaning parents instead..."

Pic: iStock

How many skills are in the game of hurling? Some argue there is actually a finite number, whereas others view it as an ever-evolving quest to achieve, if not the impossible, then the improbable. For better or worse, I gravitate towards the latter camp.

Of course, even elite players have to start somewhere and, without exception, it’s the local GAA pitch in the company of their pals as they come to terms with “the tingle in their fingers of the impact of ash on leather”, in the words of then-Taoiseach and former teammate Jack Lynch at Christy Ring’s graveside.