Royal Feast of Football - Meath Player Development Programme ::

  On Saturday morning 12th August at 6.45am, 2 coaches and a mini bus pulled up to collect over 100 young girls and coaches who were going to take part in a LGFA Under 13 National Blitz in Portlaoise, Co. Laois. These girls made up a total of 6 teams, Meath Tara, Meath Royals, Meath Harps, Meath Valley, Meath Boyne and Meath Newgrange. These teams were all extremely focused and determined as they were going to don the treasured Green and Gold Jersey and represent Meath with honour. The buses pulled into Laois GAA grounds and all these young ladies disembarked wearing their new player development program gear with pride and gusto. The blitz consisted of each of the 6 Meath teams playing 5 matches in total. 3 games which were 9 aside and the final 2 games were 15 aside with all teams receiving ample breaks between games. With a large number of counties represented, the likes of Laois, Wexford, Offaly, Carlow, Kildare, Kilkenny and Meath all had many teams on display, presenting a feast of Gaelic Football for everyone to watch. While this event was non competitive the structure and ideology of the Player Development Program was clearly visible. Anthony Monaghan, assembled a team of the finest underage coaches with the help of the LGFA. These people consented to give up their Summer, something that can not be understated to  further the standard of Gaelic football in the LGFA. They volunteered their time each week to give 2 hour training sessions which focused on several key areas to improve the abilities and decision making on the pitch with the goal of bringing some of these players up to the standard of inter county players. The focus areas were on development and utilisation of space, decision making, timing of runs, kick passing, hand passing, shooting and tackling. At this level there were at least 3 places offered to each club, which was confined by the number of coaches able to assist in the training. The structure of the program was to have a mini blitz earlier on in the program and the Inter County Regional blitz. This would show the girls how they were developing.  Co. Meath, Co. Down and Co. Galway sent 6 teams, 3 teams and 2 teams respectively to Carnaross, where multiple 15 aside matches were played. At the very end of the blitz the Meath LGFA provided food to all the participants who played, capping a fantastic day of enjoyment and brilliant football, not to mention that all these girls got to wear their county colours, many for the 1st time. The Inter County Regional Blitz was held 6 weeks later. A vast improvement was made by all the girls, it was clearly seen they were consistently off loading the ball to the player in the better position, running into space to create overlaps, steadying up as they were shooting and giving the hand pass so the person did not slow down to receive the pass and not passing high balls into crowded areas. This has been a critical success both on and off the pitch, as strong bonds have been created amongst the girls, many of whom did not know each other before the program. These bonds can only help in building better inter club relationships which can on help in bringing success to both their clubs and county. A lot of these girls are on the cusp of moving from primary school to secondary schools, during this program the seeds of new friendship have already been sown, many of these wonderful talented players will be playing at school together and showing the benefits of this program. The U15 Meath Girls are also going through a similar journey again organised by Anthony Monaghan and the Meath LGFA. These young ladies put on a fine display of football over in Darver, the home of the Louth Center of Excellence. It's with a strong guarantee you will be seeing these PDP jerseys worn with pride by all of these young ladies, as they represented Meath with class, honour and pure determination at both Under 13s and Under 15s.

Meath LGFA would like to thank Kevin Mynes for the report and photos.