THE “MOST IMPORTANT thing” Kiladangan have done during their rise to becoming one of the powerhouses of Tipperary hurling has been to get their senior players coaching underage teams. That is according to Darragh Egan, Wexford’s senior hurling manager and Kiladangan mentor.
Egan, who has held numerous roles with Kiladangan over the years including manager and juvenile chairman, explained the principle has underpinned the club’s ascent during an in-depth interview with The42’s How to Win at Dominoes podcast in 2020 before the club won a first senior county title later in the year. The podcast is available to members of the The42.
Kiladangan face Kilruane MacDonaghs on Sunday in the Tipperary SHC final, looking for a second title in three seasons. This year will be the club’s fourth final in seven seasons: they lost finals in 2016 and 2019 to Thurles Sarsfields and Borris-Ileigh before beating Loughmore in 2020.
Yet their current prominence is rooted in the methods and culture implemented in previous decades.
“What I did in 2011, I suppose I kept it really simple,” Egan said. “I was so young and new into the gig (juvenile chairman) The first thing I did was try to get the senior players involved in the coaching aspect. So every underage team was coached by a senior player.
“They would have seen the schools winning a few county titles, so they were excited by some of the players. I’ll just take Joe Gallagher, club captain (in 2020). I had a conversation with Joe, ‘Would you get involved?’ ‘Oh I’m caught for time’ and so on so forth. I said ‘Right, they’re training Tuesdays, they’re training Fridays, they’re training at 6.30 before we train at 7.30 for the seniors. You have no extra evenings. Yes, they may have a match on Saturday morning or Monday evening and you’ll obviously have to go to that’.
“But he could see the benefits of it. I suppose all that team who won the U12A final in 2012, they’re all now hurling with us. You think it’s forever away, sure these are only 12 year olds – but the reality is within five years time they’re going to be going training with you, they’re going to be hopping off you.”
Egan said the club had won 15 underage championships in recent years at A grade, and all had been coached by senior players.
“If I’m an U16 and I’m being trained by Joe Gallagher, a senior captain, I’m going to watch him at the weekend. I’m going to see him on Sunday so that kind of connection is there already,” said Egan.
He added: “Obviously you need parents, the big thing is finding a role for everybody. You do have the thing of ‘Oh, daddy’s over our U12 team, I’m definitely going to be playing’ kind of thing, which we tried to get rid of. It wasn’t too bad in our club but we tried to completely get rid of it. If daddy wants to train a team, go down to the 10s or up to the 14s. A big thing is 35 lads togged out for our county final (in 2019) against Borris-Ileigh, 29 of them had coached at underage level. It is just the most important thing we have done in the last 15 years in our club.”
To listen to the full conversation, become a member of the The42 here.
