Thomas Davis camogie section is moving in the right direction

THERE has been a camogie revolution at Thomas Davis GAA Club with numbers at juvenile level expanding in recent years’

The current success that the club has been seen with camogie can be traced back to 2018 where Lorraine Connolly implemented a series of changes in how the club would approach dealing with its underage camogie section.

At the time the club had 12 players between the ages of seven and 11 in the team. Mentor Shane Smith was a part of that restructuring also and we heard from him how the club have managed such drastic changes.

“We implemented a policy around games and play and inclusivity and we focused on movement, fun and basic skills and the numbers just began to grow.

As of last week we have 160 girls aged seven to 11. Good people got involved with a collective philosophy of how to coach and what’s best for the players”.

The team has benefitted from great success at adult camogie levels in the early 2000s with a number of those players now coaching in the club, many of whom with their own children making up the numbers at underage and juvenile levels.

Smith elaborated on the reasons why the overhaul happened when it did.

“It just so happened that many of us in the area had girls the same age. We would’ve had a keen interest in coaching and a keen interest in developing the camogie section.

‘There was tremendous work done before by many many people, I suppose a number of us just got together and said how can we bring this forward.

‘That’s when it happened around 2018, our numbers began to grow. Thankfully now we are flourishing across so many ages and those girls that joined in 2018 would probably be a lot of the girls who won the league this year at U14 and U15.”

Aside from the overall numbers improving, results on the pitch have gone hand in hand.

“All of our teams from U14-16 will be competing in Division 3 next year which is great progress.

‘We’ve won leagues along the way over the last two years which has gotten us promotion to Division 3 for next year.

‘Winning is never the sole motivational factor for children in sport. Having fun, enjoying themselves and developing skills at the same time are the most important things.

‘We want to ensure equal opportunity and equal gametime and everyone gets to play for the team.”