| Carrick Vocational School - top of the Donegal GAA tree |
|
|
|
| Written by Tom Comack | |||||||
| Wednesday, 20 January 2010 | |||||||
|
Donegal Democrat Jan 2010
Carrick Vocational school
has always boasted a great GAA tradition. The bloodlines have been
good. The 1992 Donegal All-Ireland winning team had four Carrick men on
board - Noel Hegarty and John Joe Doherty in defence and the McHugh
brothers Martin and James in the forward line.
Well-known
and renowned county men like Paddy Hegarty, Noel McGinley, Mark McShane
and Michael Hegarty have all walked the corridors and donned the
jersey. A host of Carrick players too have featured on All-Ireland
Vocational winning teams, county minor teams and U-21 teams through the
years.
The current crop at the school are not half bad either , and it is
probably fair to assume that a number of them will come through to wear
the green and gold. Patrick McBrearty and Pauric Carr have both already
played county minor and along with Darragh O'Donnell and Declan McGuire
are members of this year's Donegal team that are through to an Ulster
Vocational Schools final meeting with Monaghan. Carrick has produced many great players down the years and has accumulated a fair share of county titles and also had their time in the sun when it came to Ulster Schools. A team that included current county manager John Joe Doherty, and former county men Noel Hegarty, Mark McShane as well as Paul Carr (an All-Ireland U-21 winner with Donegal in 1987) won a Markey Cup (Ulster Senior Schoools), the only school team from Donegal ever to do so. Under the guidance of Barry Campbell, they have constantly produced good teams down the years. But if anything the present group of players have raised the bar and set new standards in the county as they chase a clean swep of titles in the coming days in the U-16 county final. They have already won the U-14 and senior titles, winning the latter back-to-back and are now the top GAA school in the county. Much bigger schools than Carrick would get the band out for much less and if Paddy Boyle and his U-16s manage to add the county title to the U-14 and senior cups already safley tucked away it will be a truly amazing achievement for a school with a little over 200 pupils - half of them boys - on their books. So how is it done? "There is no magic formula," says Noel Ward, the man who heads the GAA programme at the school and the man that took on the baton from Barry Campbell when he retired at the turn of the millennium. "The one thing we have going for us in Carrick is that we are in a very traditional GAA area. Kilcar and Naomh Columba are two of the county's most traditional clubs and while a number of the lads play soccer and number are into athletics, the number one sport in Kilcar and Glencolmcille is GAA and that is a good starting point," explains Noel Ward, who himself is a Four Masters clubman. "Our success in recent years is down to hard work and commitment from a lot of people putting in a lot of effort including staff, pupils and I suppose most of all we have received great support from the two clubs Kilcar and Naomh Columba." "I suppose the other big decision was that five years ago we decided to move up to A competitions. Up to that we had been plugging away in the B competitions and whenever it was felt the school had a good panel of players they played in the As. "And really things took off after that and we found that we were more than a match for most teams most of the time and I suppose the proof lies in that we have won the last two county senior championships." This is a point backed up by Kilcar clubman Neilly Byrne, who was one of the men drafted in by Ward to coach in the school and a man credited with playing a huge role in the recent success of the school. "We played Castlewellan from Down in Ulster a couple of years ago and we fared well. In fact we drew with them and while we lost the game in a row over extra-time there was nothing between us that day and we could have as easily won it. But we were greatly encouraged by that performance and when they went on to win the All-Ireland fairly easily, we drew even greater encouragement from how we had done against them. "So the following year we decided to put in an even bigger effort. I suppose that is the catalyst really for our recent good run," insisted Neilly Byrne. (Carrick were nominated to represent Donegal in Ulster in 2007 as the Donegal championship was not completed in time to meet the provincial deadlines). Bitten by the bug, Carrick upped their effort, and with Neilly Byrne imposing an even more rigorous training regime the success just flowed; a training regime that included 8am training sessions in Kilcar. "The idea for the morning training sessions came from the players themselves and really it took on from there. All we did at the school was really to accommodate them. They were willing to make the effort and the sacrifices so we said why not give it a go and it took off from there," explains Noel Ward. "It took a fair bit of co-ordinating and organising but everyone rowed in behind us and the school put on and paid for a special bus to go into Glen early twice a week to pick up the players and have them in Kilcar. Training started at 8am sharp every morning." For their effort Carrick were rewarded with the first of their senior championships. Again they went forward in Ulster and while they bowed out at the semi-final stage, it was not before they put in a decent showing once again against Castlewellan, the reigning All-Ireland champions. The Down school went on to retain their All-Ireland crown with considerable ease. It was a similar story again this season as Carrick added back-to-back Donegal titles. And while they had a less than impressive outing in Ulster shortly afterwards with Gareth Doherty's U-14s capturing silverware and Paddy Boyle's U-16s going on a good run, the pain of failing to make progress has been eased considerably. And if Paddy and the boys do the business against St. Columba's and complete the clean sweep of all three championships - U-14, U-16 and senior - all in the one year, that pain will have all but gone and history will be written. Regardless of the outcome, Carrick are the pace setters. They have raised the bar and are the tops here in Donegal. They have laid out the blueprint for others to follow.
Powered by !JoomlaComment 3.23
3.23 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved." |
|||||||
| Last Updated ( Wednesday, 20 January 2010 ) | |||||||
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|