The Perfect Coaching Session

Last night almost 50 coaches turnout for a Coach Education course titled The Prefect Coaching Session delivered by Tony Scullion and Kevin McGuigan. The Derry minor football squad took part in what was a very enjoyable and worthwhile session. All the players had heart rate monitors on them and they will be given feedback on their performance during the session.

Oak Leaf School of Excellence Huge Success

The first Oak Leaf School of Excellence for Under 14 Footballers got of to a flying start. 78 young players were treated to a day of coaching led by Tony Scullion in the sunshine at Banagher.

The next School of Excellence will be announced in the coming days.

Special thanks to Paul Simpson, Ashleen McCaul and Shauna McCallion who ably assisted, to Banagher for the use of their grounds and to all the lads who made the effort to turn out.

Oak Leaf School of Excellence

This week we have advertsied our first Oak Leaf School of Excellence to be held in Owenbeg on Saturday 6th June at 2pm. The hope is that players who would like to gain that little extra bit of coaching can do so. Each session will have a key focus. I am delighted that Tony Scullion will lead the first ever Oak Leaf School of Excellence and it's pretty obvious his session will concentrate on Tackling (wouldn't be much point bringing Tony into do shooting! Can't mind ever seeing him score, I'm sure Tony will correct me).

The Oak Leaf School of Excellence is only for Under 14's, if a player is still Under 12 he is too young. The sessions are free of charge, however people have to register with me via email at chris.collins.gm.derry@gaa.ie

The maximum we will take will be close to 100. I expect places to go on this pretty sharp so please make sure and register early to avoid disappointment.

Depending on the success of the first session we would hope to have at least four more School's of Excellence before the end of the summer and vary the locations.

Year 9 Vocational Schools Football Coaching Day

The Year 9's enjoyed a coaching day today in Owenbeg. Seven vocational schools attended with close to 150 pupils taking part. The day had coaching in the morning and games in the afternoon. Tony Scullion, Derry Legend was coaching defensive play, Richard Ferris, Derry minor manager concentrated on tackling, Paul Rouse former Tyrone player coached attacking play, Gary Mallon, Armagh senior coach focused on Kicking skills and Diarmuid Scullion, Bellaghy coach was running the lads through conditioned games. Paul Callaghan, Former Donegal Goalkeeping coach took the 8 GK's for a two hour session.

By 12 noon the players had built up quite an appetite, after digging into the sandwiches the schools rounded an excellent day off with games against each other.

The schools that took part were St. Mary's Limavady, St. Patrick's Dungiven, St. Joseph's Derry, St. Patrick's and St. Brigid's Claudy, St. Colm's Draperstown, St. Mary's Clady and Dominican College Portstewart.

Thanks to all the teachers and pupils who took part and a particular word of thanks to the coaches who kindly agreed to spend the day coaching the lads.

A Busy Weekend

On Friday 6th March Tony Scullion delivered an excellent coaching workshop with the Derry Under 17 squad. It was disappointing only 20 coaches turned out. Thanks very much Tony for what was a very enjoyable evening.

On Saturday morning we had the Club Derry Development squad trials for the Under 15's and Under 16's close to 200 young hopeful's took part in a series of games in Owenbeg. We will trial again this weekend, anyone who couldn't make it to the trials on Saturday have been given the benefit of the doubt. Names will appear on the Derry website bu Wednesday.

While the development squad trials were taking place we also had 2 Under 12 Indoor Hurling blitz's beginning in Limavady and Swatragh. The following teams took part Kevin Lynch's (3), Swatragh (2), Ballinascreen (4), Coleraine (2), Na Magha (2) and Slaughtneil (2).

Busy weekend for Football Development Squads

On Friday 6th March the Under 17 Development squad will have their first coaching session in Owenbeg at 7.30pm. Tony Scullion will be delivering the session. It is also a CPD programme, so club coaches have the opportunity to come over and see Tony at work. The session will be on "Games to Develop Football". I'm really looking forward to the session for two reasons; Tony is a class coach and you can be sure to pick up plenty of stuff from his sessions and secondly this will be the first outing for the Under 17 minor recruits. I haven't seen the final panel yet but I was over at one of the earlier trials and there were some excellent players on show.

On Saturday morning we have our first Under 15 and 16 trials. The coaches for 2009 are all raring to go and I am expecting the quality to be exceptional. So far we only have a few clubs who have submitted their players for the trial so please remember to get them to ccollins@derry.gaa.ie before Wednesday. There was a few queries in the guestbook regarding only be able to register three players per club. If some of the teams playing A football feel they have more players good enough then it will be no problem getting them a trial just submit the names, position and DOB.