GAA

The Club Jersey, Croke Park and the Club Finals

The Club Jersey

The Club jersey. You’ve known it and worn it for as long as you can remember. Club legends that went before you. Your dad. Uncles, maybe a brother. And now it’s your turn. In Croke Park. Something special. The jersey. The badge. The band of brothers. The banter and the craic. The Club. And Croke Park. Think of the lads that will come after too. The legacy you leave behind. What it all means. What’s in Jersey? The passion. Pride. The history.

That’s the way it is for eight panels of club players this week. On Saturday and Sunday the footballers and hurlers of eight intermediate and junior clubs get to do their thing in Croke Park. As the sponsors the AIB would have you believe, it is #TheToughest. A winter’s preparation and hard word boils down to one afternoon in Croke Park.

It always seemed that gaelic football was the more likely of the gaelic games to become widely played worldwide, however in recent years hurling has gained a foothold in the United States, increasingly common among non Irish communities, where players are attracted by the skill and physicality of a game that they say has it all.

Hurling has featured in North America since reports in the late 1700s reported matches between rival Irish immigrants, with the occasional row breaking out among players and partisans!

At the start of the twentieth century there were about a dozen American hurling clubs. Indeed in 1910 a group of American hurlers toured Ireland and in the 1930s teams from the States played in the Tailteann Games.

Hurling is now spreading beyond the Irish communities in the United States with some success. More and more unfamiliar, yet distinctively Irish hurling and gaelic football jerseys are appearing on the O’Neills website. There is a thriving interest

Over recent years there has been a steady stream of GAA players heading to Australia for work or extended holidays. Gaelic Games in Australia and in New Zealand have probably never been stronger.  We take a look at some recent developments.

In March 2015 O’Neills opened its first Australian office headed up by Antoinette Brophy from Kildare, who moved Down Under to take on this role. Speaking at the time Antoinette told us: “There is some O’Neills brand awareness due to the fact that most of the Australian Gaelic football players have become

Gaelic football. Played worldwide. The O’Neills All Ireland Gaelic football. Kicked around the world where Gaelic is played. The two are virtually interchangeable.

For GAA clubs setting up overseas, one of the first things they send home for is an authentic O’Neills All Ireland football.  It just isn’t a Gaelic football match if you’re not using an O’Neills ball. It’s that simple.

Over time the O’Neills Gaelic football has become synonymous with our Gaelic games, the GAA, football and the Sunday Game. In the last twelve months alone hundreds of the O’Neills All Ireland balls have been shipped to teams worldwide. The O’Neills ball is kicked from San Francisco to New York, from Stockholm to Seville, from Amsterdam to Abu Dhabi and from Penang to Perth.

Wherever

Anyone who’s ever been involved in a coaching or playing capacity with an intercounty Camogie team or Ladies Gaelic Football team will know that they work every bit as hard as their male counterparts. The difference? They get a fraction of the recognition, little of the reward and minimal media coverage. It’s the 21st Century now, and its time things changed.

For years players involved in Camogie or football maybe just accepted the way it was. But it became quickly apparent when they trained alongside their male equivalents, when they compared notes with their brothers or clubmates, or when they lifted a newspaper that the innovations coming thick and fast to the men’s game weren’t coming their way at all.

Treating Athletes the Same

For some county players simple innovations like a hot shower, food or physio after training were a foreign country. If that was the state of things for county players, imagine the situation at club level. Unreconstructed

PRESS RELEASE – MAY 2015

O’Neills Sportswear Partners with FECOFA

O’Neills Sportswear are pleased to announce the partnership with the Fédération Congolaise de Football-Association.

FECOFA is the governing body of football in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

DR Congo introduced the unique designed jerseys and kits, supplied by O’Neills, for the first time in January 2015 in the African Cup of Nations.

You can now purchase the jersey here

Soon there will be a generation of hurlers and camogs going through their careers that won’t remember the bare headed player. Hard to believe but it's true.

In both games of course up until relatively recent times, helmets were unknown. Players regularly got split open playing the game which added to its allure for men and women alike.

It wasn’t until 1967 when the helmet made its debut. A lad by the name of Micheal Murphy came on as a second half sub for UCC in a Cork County Final wearing a motorcycle helmet prompting a few raised eyebrows amongst the 12,500 souls watching the game. Murphy had sustained a fractured skull and, wanting to play in the match, had the ingenious idea to wear a helmet for protection. Nothing wrong with that we can say through the mists of time.

At the second time of asking in 1968 UCC’s motion to the Cork County Convention led to the matter being considered at the National Congress. From then onwards, players’ headgear

O’Neills Partners Cricket Ireland

Ireland’s superb performances in the ICC Cricket World Cup provided the backdrop to the opening of O’Neills first Australian office in Adelaide.

Headed up by Kildare native Antoinette Brophy, the Official Launch of O’Neills Adelaide in conjunction with Cricket Ireland was held at the offices of Andersons solicitors just before Ireland’s crunch World Cup match against Pakistan. O’Neills is official kit supplier to Cricket Ireland supplying the current World Cup Ireland Cricket Jersey.

Guests of honour at the launch were the Irish Cricket officials and the playing squad who came

Playing at Croke Park is a club player’s dream, but what can they expect when they get there?

It’s every player’s dream to play in Croke Park, and to play there with your club is probably the biggest buzz of all. You’ll rarely hear criticisms of games being taken to headquarters, although bizarrely one Camogie manager a few years back expressed his relief that a replay wouldn’t be played at the Jones’ Road venue. Something about the surface. Each to their own I suppose.

A Day out for Small Clubs

The AIB All Ireland Senior Club Finals throw in there tomorrow, St Patrick’s Day. Already this year junior and intermediate footballers and hurlers and Senior and Intermediate Camogie teams have battled out in Croke Park for All Ireland honours. The GAA and the Camogie Association have to be commended for giving smaller clubs their day in the sun and since the Holy Grail of an appearance at Croke Park is there

(Pictured: Jim Nelson is carried off Croke Park by then County Chairman Oliver Kelly (RIP) and team doctor Alistair McDonnell (MP) following the Saffrons Semi-Final victory over Offaly.)

Antrim GAA, Ulster hurling and the entire hurling community in Ireland today mourns the passing of Jim Nelson.

A legend of the game, Jim is perhaps best known for taking a brilliant Antrim team to the All Ireland hurling final in 1989. The St Paul’s clubman was rightly regarded as one of the greatest hurling coaches around having influenced a generation of players and fellow coaches. As a player Jim won 3 Antrim Senior Hurling Championship medals with St John’s as well as a number of Senior Football championship medals. He was admired and respected throughout Ulster and Antrim in particular for his success in coaching Camogie and hurling, and for his influence on the game.

In the last few years Jim was a key man in the coaching set up with the Loughgiel Shamrocks