Our U11s games programme concluded over the past two weeks in Monaghan. This programme was broken down into Spring League & Liam Stirrat Development League. Both league’s focused on participation, skill development and enjoyment for all those that took part.

The Spring league started in April and concluded with a finals day in July. This finals day consisted of a “Most Skillful Team” award and all participants receiving a medal.  This then led us into the Liam Stirrat Development league which commenced in July and included 6 rounds taking place every second week over the months of July, August, September and October. The first 5 rounds had a skill focus, these included the reach catch, kick pass, block, near hand tackle and the roll. For the final round of games, an award for “Most Skillful Player” was presented at each game from a player from each club taking part(see pictures of the individual award winners below). The purpose of the skill focus is to assist the coaches while planning/delivering their coaching sessions and creating a link between the session and the game by awarding a point if the skill was performed correctly during the game. In addition, to this the players would also benefit from this initiative because from a development point of view they are at an age where they can learn & implement these skills.

This league was named after Liam Stirrat who was a great GAA man and had great love for his club Scotstown but also for Monaghan GAA. Liam served with distinction as both Chairman of Monaghan County Board and also managing the Monaghan Senior Football team. Liam had great success in managing teams both with Scotstown & Monaghan. Whilst managing teams Liam had a great understanding of developing players and particularly their skill set, with this in mind this is why we introduced U11 Liam Stirrat Development League & a skill focus for each round.

Monaghan Coaching & Games Development would like to thank all the clubs, management teams, referees and players for their support through the year . The varying of the rules & skill focus no doubt can be a challenge but we hope that all concerned can now see the benefits of focusing on development rather than winning for this age group.