Page 28 - 2020ClareCamogieBoardAGM

CLARE CAMOGIE FOUNDED 1934

On February 1 , on a cold but dry afternoon, we had 7 teams and over 105 players attend the first
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interregional blitz, played 11, 10 minute a side games, on both fields in Clonlara and over a 3 hour
period got our first sight and understanding of the group in competitive action.

On February 29 , 108 players attended (with 12 absent for the final blitz and 10 pulling out for various
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reasons over the 12 week program), we graded the players from the knowledge gained from
February 1 and regional sessions, picked 8 mixed teams from across the three regions and held 4,
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20 minute a side games in order to align on the top 60 or so players to progress to the development
squad. This proved to be a very productive and enjoyable finale to the program and each player
to complete the program was presented with Clare Camogie socks and a wall ball.

The management team met in early March to decide on 65 players to progress to the Clare County
Development Squad. We communicated success or otherwise to all participants by March 9 and
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let all players back to their clubs to prepare for the club championships and a commitment to bring
the group together prior to the first intercounty blitz in April/May.

However, Covid-19s restrictions came into place in mid-March which stalled the club activity and
with lockdown extended into April after the initial two week period, we decided to issue the county
development squad with an ‘Isolation Program’ for April (Included below). This included a
conditioning, speed and endurance element from a fitness perspective and wall and skill sessions
from a camogie perspective. This program was designed to sustain and possibly build on the work
over the winter period while also providing the players with a focus and physical outlet during
lockdown. This was only possible as the players had been informed of the correct exercise
techniques during the Winter School of Excellence.

As May began, hope seemed to appear in that Covid numbers were improving and there might
be an opportunity to have some intercounty activity later in the year. Therefore, we decided to
develop a series of video challenges weekly for 6 weeks from the 2 week in May with the first
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challenge being squad members completing the ‘Ditch the Hurleys’ Clare Camogie run fundraiser.
This was followed by 5 camogie skills and fitness challenges set by Clare intercounty senior hurlers,
Aoife Power, Fiona Lafferty and Laura McMahon. The challenges were circulated to the group on
a Monday, weekly and the players had the week to practice and complete the challenge and
submit a video to the group by the end of the week. Players engaged well with these changes with
on average over 90% participation each week across the 6 challenges/weeks. This was insightful for
management in seeing the flow and capability of players skillsets while the players enjoyed being
challenged and seeing how their peers coped with executing these skills.

The video challenges kept the group engaged until mid-June 2020. At that stage, with the prospect
of club activity and competition returning, we stepped down activities, asking the players to enjoy
and commit fully to club activity, continue to work on developing their skills and fitness and subject
to public health guidelines, we would reconvene in mid-September.

In mid-September, while conscious that club action remained a priority, we were anxious to get the
group back together for some initial training sessions in the hope of getting some intercounty game
time and experience for the players. There was a window of two weeks between the end of club
group matches on September 16 and club semi-finals scheduled for October 3 so we returned
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to training with two sessions on September 19 and September 26 in Newmarket. Approximately
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45 to 50 players attended both sessions, where we split into three groups and trained for 90 minutes.
We then let the players back to the clubs for u14 club semi-final activity. Before we could reconvene