Rebel Óg reveal new underage awards scheme

The chairman of Rebel Óg, the fledgling organisation that caters for underage GAA in Cork, is confident they will eradicate the “teething problems” from its first year of operations.

Marc Sheehan, also the Children’s Officer of Cork County Board, hailed a new monthly awards scheme launched this week, which the Irish Examiner are media partners, as a sign of their determination to efficiently run their programme of games in 2012.

“We feel that we’re strong enough as an organisation to merit an awards system which will, on a monthly basis, recognise excellence in Cork underage GAA,” he said.

“We’re welcoming this opportunity to further develop the Rebel Óg brand as we’re conscious of the huge number of players, club and schools involved. In that regard we’re also very grateful to our sponsors the Rochestown Park Hotel and Cummins Sports, and our media partners the Irish Examiner and Red FM.

“I think 2012 will be a very successful year for us as we’ve had a chance to iron out teething problems that emerged last year. Obviously some issues came up in 2011 but I feel that’s par for the course in any sporting organisation in their first year.

“We have a fixtures planning and monitoring committee in place who have launched our fixtures plan for the year ahead. There’s a fairly significant programme which begins next weekend and will run until the autumn. From an organisational point of view, we’re well ahead of where we were at this stage last year.”

The new awards scheme was officially launched last Monday night in the Rochestown Park Hotel by GAA President Christy Cooney with Cork County Board chairman Bob Ryan and PRO Tracey Kennedy also present. Former Cork All-Ireland winning captain Mark Landers and All-Ireland winner Seanie O’Gorman are members of the judging committee along with Dunmanway native Donal McCarthy. Former Cork minor football manager and current principal of the North Monastery school Mick Evans will chair the committee.

“We’re really looking forward to the awards scheme and I think we have excellent judges,” said Sheehan.

“For the first 12 days of every month it’ll be open for anyone to submit nominations for a team, club, player or school up to the minor grade in Cork GAA, who they feel are worthy of the award. There’s a dedicated email address set up for nomination in [e-mail].”