Former GAA director of games: 'What do we want – better players or better people? That’s the paradox'

Former GAA Director of Games Development and Research Pat Daly. Pic: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile.

In a week when the GAA seemed to be up in arms about the idea of less competitive games for teenagers, there was only one person to turn to.

After 44 years as a full-time employee of the GAA, Pat Daly retired in the spring of 2025. 

The organisation’s former director of games and later games development and research, Go Games remains one of his enduring legacies.

Next year marks the 20th anniversary of the introductory matches for seven to 11-year-olds where the emphasis is on development. 

From the balls used to the lack of score-tracking to the small-sided games and reduced pitches to rotating positions and substitutes, participation is the objective.

On Tuesday, The42 reported of plans to introduce less competitive games for ages above Go Games (13 to 17) with the aim of addressing drop-out among older children. Smaller-sided, conditioned games are included in the proposals.

The GAA’s national games development committee chairman Micheál Martin later assuaged fears that such matches could become de rigueur in the GAA. 

“[They] will be primarily for adapted games in rural areas to facilitate clubs fielding teams at nine or 11-a-side where it suits their needs,” he told RTÉ.

Daly recognises the vacuum that Super Games centres for 12 to 17-year-olds attempted to fill. Developed in the late 2010s, they were aimed at providing playing opportunities for those “not adequately catered for or served by regular school or club games through traditional competitive structures”.

“Play to Stay” was the mantra and while over 36,000 kids played in the smaller-sided games in 2019, the concept hasn’t taken off. Although children appeared to enjoy it, full-time staff and parents didn’t.

“Super Games never really took root in the way that it was anticipated they might,” says Daly. “The perception was, ‘They’re only for B players, they’re a waste of time’.

“But it was creating opportunity for everyone. The result wasn’t the end but the means to an end. You had two-year cohorts, so you wouldn’t have a 13-year-old playing against a 17-year-old. It was seven to 11-a-side and each team would have four short games.

“What that meant was a young fella was coming in, maybe feeling he wasn’t good enough to get a game for his club, and seeing a lot of action. That changes the dynamic for him. That was what we were trying to do but the culture from the early stages is ultra-competitive and winning is the name of the game.” 

In 2020, chartered psychologist Daragh Sheridan, who was involved with Galway senior football and hurling teams this past season and previously IRFU head of high performance coach development, wrote an academic paper, “Here, you’re all good enough to play”: Lessons Learned from the GAA Super Games 5 Centres”.

It concluded the inclusive nature of the games influenced inter-group relationships in reversing the drop-out trend. The findings also suggested the games engendered a sense of belonging.

Drop-off numbers used to consume Daly. He abhorred how filtering children based on ability was prioritised. 

“If we're trying to develop a person and the early emphasis is on winning, there's not going to be much room for development because the outcome will determine everything.

“And if you have ego-driven coaches, a lot of the time there are the people that are kind of pushing that on, it’s a vicious circle then. If you look at a culture of winning, ‘keep the best, forget the rest’, these things happen quickly. Kids then just get pushed out of the way, they get pushed aside.

“If you want to develop a better person, the only way you can do that is provide games opportunities for them. And what do we want – better players or better people? That’s the paradox.

“Everything in life is competitive. Kids out in the back garden, on the green or in the field, that’s the way it’s going to be. Go Games and Super Games were configured to move away from the outcome of a contest, but it’s easier said than done because culture will eat strategy for breakfast and it’s all about winning. 

"Somebody from Kilkenny said to me, ‘The younger you can inculcate them into that, the better’. But that’s why we have 60% drop-out.” 

Daly has some concerns that artificial technology is going to damage the fabric of society and the GAA has to take note. 

“I think it is going to place an increased emphasis on the need for people to get recreational outlets. That kids get the opportunities to play because we’re looking at a world, which is contracting human relationships and contact.

“Everything is being atomised and individualised. The social element that is very much at the heart of the game is potentially going to be diminished further.” The argument for competitive games from the age of 12 onwards is their contribution to building up resilience. Daly would argue simply being allowed to play games goes a long way to doing just that. He cites the self-determination theory as put forward by US psychologists Richard Ryan and Edward Deci.

“There are three key aspects of that theory. Firstly, you experience a sense of competence. You feel that you're good at it. If you're not getting games and you've been discounted, competence has gone out the window.

“Autonomy, you feel you're driving the bus, a sense of agency and finally relatedness, there's a sense of togetherness and you’re learning from and with this group. It’s a three-legged stool. If one of them is missing, you’re going to struggle.” 

Daly recalls a situation in his own club in Ratoath, Co Meath where he and others set up an U14 team for players who weren’t getting matches. They played a year up and went three years without winning a game. 

“At 18, those guys backboned the team to win the second minor football championship. Five or six of them are still playing into their 30s now.” 

Just as innocence is to be protected, enjoyment is something that should be fortified, says Daly. 

“The equivalent of work for a child is play. And everything is grounded in play. And we had played to learn and learned to perform to our potential, but everything starts and finishes with play.

“And I'd say if you talk to players today, they will say because of the tyranny of metrics and stats, the play has disappeared from the game. Fun, friendship and fitness, they are the essential requirements. If you don’t have them, then you won’t attain things like fairness and fulfilment.

“It’s a philosophical argument but the more you stick to a competitive model, the harder it’s going to be to do what needs to be done for the person.”