Promoting GAA at Asian Youth C’ships

WHILE Provincial championships take place in Ireland and a host of county championships are coming to an end, Drimnagh man Daniel Burke was involved in the Asian Youth Championships which were held in Hanoi, Vietnam last weekend.

Daniel is a coach with the Viet Celts who are actually based in Hanoi and hosted the tournament.

The competition saw teams from across Asia come to take part including, Singapore, Shanghai and Thailand. Over 250 children in total took part at the event.

Events take place across a variety of different age groups from U6 all the way to U16 level with Championships and Shields being contested with the U16s match being decided with a series of games between the Viet Celts and a amalgamated team of the other countries involved.

Daniel spoke about the experience of joining the club.

“I played with Good Counsel a little bit when I was growing up but didn’t start playing properly till around 5th year.

‘I moved over here about eight years ago and it was just great to have something when you go over.

‘I’m more involved in GAA now than when I was at home.

‘When I went over, landed and went training that week, you instantly had 50 new mates straight away. Everyone was very welcoming and you want to give back to the club after having such a nice experience with them.”

The club has been in operation since 2007 and has been steadily growing over that time.

While there is always a certain number of members coming from Ireland, like Daniel who are looking for a slice of home, there are an ever growing number of natives taking up the sport with no prior connection to either Ireland or GAA.

Daniel takes on multiple training sessions each week with trainings in the club as well as school teams with various international schools playing GAA and setting up mini leagues against one another. He can train over 150 children in a weekend.

Daniel estimates that Vietnamese children make up around 95% of the demographic for the Viet Celts youth teams and this follows similar patterns seen with the teams in Shanghai, Cambodia as well as the Mekong Shamrocks, Laos’s first ever GAA club set up by Tallaght man Aaron Hughes.

The senior Asian Games are set to take place this coming weekend in Bangkok, GAA president Jarlath Burns has travelled over to watch both youth and senior events and had this to say after witnessing the Viet Celts in action in Hanoi.

“I come here and I see Asian Children and children from Vietnam playing our games and playing them so well and enjoying our games.”