Laois hurling promotion project on a roll

The last 12 months or so mightn't seem the ideal time to have been promoting hurling in Laois but one project has just recently marked its first anniversary.

With football enjoying its best profile in the county for decades, it might have been expected hurling would have been pushed into the shadows.

Pat Critchley - one of the driving forces behind the programme to take hurling into the schools - disagrees and believes football success has a positive role to play in promoting hurling.

An All-Ireland club football medallist with his club Portlaoise, Critchley remains Laois's only hurling All Star to date, an award he picked up in 1985, and has also managed the county hurlers.

Even his home club has added to the county's recent football achievements by winning the Leinster championship before Christmas and are now two matches from adding to the All-Ireland won 22 years ago - although Critchley points out Portlaoise also won the county hurling title and were unlucky to run into a strong UCD team in Leinster.

"A lot of the time hurling groups have chips on their shoulders," he says. "But I think you've got to look at it from a more positive angle and try and replicate the success of the football development squads. We have to work on juveniles to give them the skills and make them comfortable with the game. By the time they get to development squads at 13 or 14 only the exceptional player is going to pick up the game.

That's possible in football because there aren't as many skills. But football has given Gaelic games a far higher platform in the eyes of kids. Hurling should take advantage of that rather than see it as a threat."

The work that has been done in Portlaoise so far has been given an enthusiastic response in the schools. "It's in the early stages. I got involved with under-10s and we haven't lost any of them to football and they're really enjoying it. That's important because hurling has to generate its own success."

Critchley says the next step is to expand beyond the county town.

"At the moment there's a group being put together to produce a plan in conjunction with the schools, juvenile board and county board."

To provide top-up funding for the scheme a debate is being organised February 28th at the Heritage Hotel in Portlaoise.

The idea came to Critchley from a similar event, organised by Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh after a coaching course in Killarney. It is organised on the theme of "The role of the midfielder".

"I asked Micheál to chair it and it will be run on a question-and-answer basis with the audience encouraged to participate."

The panel of hurling coaches and analysts includes Sunday Game panellists Ger Loughnane and Michael Duignan, Kilkenny manager Brian Cody, Dublin manager Humphrey Kelleher, Laois manager Páidí Butler and the only current player selected on the Team of the Millennium, Offaly's Brian Whelahan.

Anyone interested in attending the debate can contact Séamus Plunkett 086 8169404, Pat Leogue 086 8149623, Pat Critchley 086 1070198 or Thomas McDermott 087 2311309. Ticket requests can be forwarded to pat@oakpartnership.com or tmcdermott@laoissports.ie with phone contact details. Postal applications (including cheques) can be forwarded to Laois Sports Partnership, Coach House, 4 Kellyville Park, Portlaoise.