Cobh Pirates Annual Youth Awards

The annual awards for the youth section of the Club was held last Friday night in the clubhouse. A good crowd turned out to acknowledge the various age grade award winners and numerous other special awards. The night opened with the Juvenile Chairman, Kieran McKeown, welcoming all and introducing Club President, Tony O’Malley and Club Chairman, Billy Dunne to the players and parents.
He outlined that, historically, although there had been some underage games through the use of players from Presentation Brothers in the early 70s, the current Juvenile Section…officially began in 1977, and after some years of development and growth, the club won its first every underage trophy, with the u16 Cup in 1984, where they beat local rivals Midleton on a 3-nil score line.

Cadets

Things moved on…the numbers grew at youth level and Pirates by 1987 had teams at all age groups. However, with the dawning of the 90s, Pirates’ youth section matured to point where they literally won leagues and cups yearly, produced on average 2 players per season at representative rugby, at Munster Youths, produced a World Cup u19 winner in 1998, with Brendan Ronan, who played alongside Brian O’Driscoll and Donncha O’Callaghan in that team.

From that period of history in the Club juvenile section, notably, two our representative players at Munster Youth level, Colm MacCoitir, is now coaching at u8 and Mark Cronin coaching at u15. Ultimately, the goal of the club is to promote rugby football and produce players to sustain this. Everything else surrounds this…but, key to any club success is to produce a conveyor belt of players from the youth section to allow the first XV compete at the highest provincial level. The foundation stone of everything at the Club is the Juvenile Section, and thus, this is what the Awards Night is about; to acknowledge these players and reflect on the season just gone !

Clubmen Of The Year

The evening was part 2 of our overall Juvenile awards, with the Mini Section having a successful family day at the Club on Easter Monday, where all players received medals and achievement certificates. Cobh Pirates has moved on a lot at the Mini and Youth Section over  the last 12 months. After the IRFU rebased the age grades last year, we had a situation where we now need to play age grade rugby for additional year, thus, on the upside,  extending the number of years at underage rugby for the player, and downside, we are reducing the players available to the adult section, with players now player at underage to 19 years old.

The Club addressed the need for greater numbers, with an aggressive recruitment campaign last September at the mini section, with 180 players at u6 to u12 and 129 registered at youth level and tried to back fill at the youth age-grades with reasonable success. Total playing numbers at age grade rugby in the Club is: 309 highest ever !

Going back to the 90s and all the success at youths, then the barren 00s, now, working towards a fruitful future, as a Club, we also reviewed the whole underage section 3 years ago, where collectively we agreed that we need to spend more time, money and effort on establishing a better structure for the progression of players, improve the overall skill sets for each age grade, and in general we needed to lift the bar on the way the club manages underage rugby.

Every age grade from 5 year’s old to 19 year’s old, is now been coached by ex-players with good sound knowledge of the game, who are also undertaking the relevant coaching courses, etc… to develop themselves both as a coach and improve the rugby experience for each player overall.
More numbers – means more coaches are required, more managers, more helpers in general, so please come forward if you would like to get involved, no matter what your rugby experience is.

Anyone involved at underage rugby is a volunteer, for this, as a Club, Cobh Pirates are very grateful for their time, commitment, their attention to the kids we have, their role in developing player skills and teamwork. Cobh Pirates Mini Section is working well – the Club is now on an excellent foundation for future, this will propagate itself to the youths over the coming years.

Emphasis will be on inclusion and player development, more success, more enjoyment. The Munster Cadets Programme is working well.

*         4 players on ’96 cadets

*         1player on ’95 cadets

The highlight of the season will have to be the 19s South Munster Cup win and their season in general. Great commitment and achievement…let this be the start of continued success.

Special thanks was expressed to our Club Referees, who help us out during year at youth games…

*         Joe Geary

*         Bob Anglim

*         Brendan O’Connor

*         Mossie Mahon

Sincere and gracious thanks to our main team sponsors, who have been generous in their support. Also, special mention to the numerous local businesses who have supported us over the season with our various events, fundraisers and team activities.

*         Lisheen Mines

*         McDonalds Mahon Point ( Mark O’Halloran)

Many thanks to the Juvenile Committee John Barry, Catherine McSweeney, Joan Devlin and Tina McKeown

Finally, the club would like to compliment all the coaches, players, referees, parents & sponsors for the hard work within the Club’s youth section this year that is paving the way to a big bright future. The following awards were presented on the night.

u13 Award Winners

Awards
U13  Age Grade: 1998 / 1999
Player of the Year: Eoghan O’Flynn
Most Improved Player of the Year: John McCarthy
Clubman of the Year: Max Kahn
Coaches: Julian Kahn, Ken Gill

u 15 Award Winners

U15 Age Grade: 1996 / 1997
Player of the Year: Stephen Hickey
Most Improved Player of the Year: Glenn O’Sullivan
Clubman of the Year: Anthony Devlin-Buckley
Coaches: Mark Cronin, Colm O’Donovan, Bernard Buckley, Killian Barry

u 17 Award Winners

U17 Age Grade: 1994 / 1995
Player of the Year: John Armstrong
Most Improved Player of the Year: Lee Quirke
Clubman of the Year: Jack Cahill
Coaches: Ollie Ryan, Willie Dunne, Martin Clifford, James O’Hanlon

u19 Award Winners

U19 Age Grade: 1992 / 1993
Player of the Year: Mark Dunphy
Most Improved Player of the Year: Martin Reidy
Clubman of the Year: Emmett O’Sullivan
Coaches: Colm Morgan, Paul Mulvihill, Dave McAuliffe & Dave Hallahan

Munster Cadets Programme
1996 Cadets
Stephen Hickey,  Adam Devlin,  Anthony Devlin-Buckley & Shane Cullimore

1995 Cadets
Aaron Gilmore

IRFU PLAY RUGBY
Play Rugby is an IRFU initiative aimed at assisting teachers, coaches and parents involved in rugby at mini and primary school level. Research has found that participating in sports can have a healthy developmental impact on young children. These activities can promote co-operative play, teamwork and good sportsmanship. As part of this initiative, Cobh Pirates have are rolling this out in the primary schools in Cobh over the recent weeks. St. Joseph’s was the first school from Sept ’10 to January ’11, followed by St. Mary’s and Norwood, with Walterstown/Gael Scoil hoping to start during May. Central to 2 of these schools, has been a guy who worked on his own initiative to start the scheme in St. Joseph’s, and is the lead at St. Mary’s at the moment. This guy is studying Sports Science at Colaiste Stiofan Noafa, is actively involved with our u15s and plays on our adult teams. Cobh Pirates’ want to present a small token for his outstanding efforts with the IRFU Play Rugby Programme and wish him well with his exams and studies for this year. Award to: Killian Barry.

IRFU Award

Club Persons of the Year Award

In recognition for their outstanding season, commitment, player development, their will to instil a sense of club pride with the u19 players, and winning of the South Munster u19 Cup

U19 Coaching Team: Colm Morgan, Paul Mulvihill, Dave McAuliffe & Dave Hallahan