The GAA is to appoint a Head of Hurling as part of the association’s ambition to grow the small-ball game.
The establishment of the position was announced at a media briefing by the National Hurling Development Committee (HDC) at Croke Park on Wednesday.
There have been similar roles in place previously – Paudie Butler was the GAA’s National Hurling Coordinator between 2006-11 while Martin Fogarty was the National Hurling Development Manager from 2016-21.
However, the new Head of Hurling’s brief is to be more centred on the overall strategic development of the game, with a particular emphasis on designated counties – and they are to receive strong backing to create a lasting impact.
“It would be distinctly different in so far as Martin didn’t have, as far as we can establish, the strategic back-up of a committee that rolled out a programme on a strategy basis as opposed to games development,” explained HDC chairman Terry Reilly.
“This person will be more strategic in nature. It’s not someone who will be going out and rolling out programmes on the ground. It’s somebody who is working with provinces and counties to coach the coaches in order to roll out the programmes.
“I would have thought that the conditions are primed now for the person in this role to have ‘teeth’ like never before.”
It is hoped the new Head of Hurling will be in place early next year.
Jarlath Burns had set out the development of hurling as one of three key objectives during his presidency, but the Armagh man says this will be no quick fix.
“This is a very long-term project, I won’t see any results at the end of my presidency,” he stated.
“We might start to see the basis of results on the 150th anniversary of the GAA (2034), or we may not. But the long-term objective here has to be that we are going to have more counties participating in the Liam MacCarthy Cup. That has to be the long-term priority.
“This committee is the catalyst by which counties who have a genuine desire to see hurling and camogie develop within their counties have somewhere to go, have somebody to ask, can get advice and guidance, and finance if needed, to set up a hurling or a camogie element within their club or a new club in places where demographics allow that. That’s really what this is about.”
Reilly, from the Gort na Móna club in Belfast, hopes some counties can have a change of mindset in relation to hurling.
“The problem that we have is that we have counties that are carrying out acts of sabotage by not facilitating hurling fixtures,” he added.
“How do we go about redressing that? We need to assure those counties that we’re there to help, that we’re there to assist, so we can get them the confidence to try to roll out as many hurling fixtures as they possibly can.”
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