Young lad’s first night going to senior training and he is greeted by three goons in black from the Ranger Wing who spend an hour and a half basically torturing them. instructing them (always referring to the players as numbers) to carry logs, crawling around the pitch on therir hands and knees, doing laps with full ammo boxes, 12 stone dummies and jerry cans of water. All the while shouting abuse and turning the water from the gerry cans on them at the end. It was basically Ultimate Hell week inoculation. Apparently, many of those that atayed were puking their ring up (some refused to take part). A picture of son’s knees the evening after. The club are one of the worst performing teams in the lowest league in the county.. This is the cult of the GAA
by CaptainAutumn100
43 comments
Senior training what age is he?
Think big picture. Your son will be immune to prosecution if he’s half way decent.
What the fuck?
The Ranger Wing? Like, the special forces guys? Why are they training a kids gaa team?
The purpose of that kind of military training is to break your will and make you compliant.
The GAA see as a means to toughen up the kids presumably. How about teaching them some skills?
This is what will get Waterford over the line. You must support the boy.
I get that it’s pretty much the foundation of Gaelic games, but this overdose of S&C with no ball skills is endemic, and the proof is there at the top level with hand pass after hand pass and no one able to kick a score outside of the D.
While I’m all for hard training and strenght conditioning this time of year, this is way over the top.
You can build character doing some runs in the heavy ground out on the pitch and some weight training. Obviously for a 17 year old ease him into the training.
All that additional stuff is BS.
My knees haven’t looked like that since I was an altar boy.
I know every club will be a bit different, but I swear ours seems to think ignorance and arrogance are virtues
You wouldn’t get that in MMA and we are literally kicking each other in the head
And that kind of training is fairly useless for GAA.
Don’t see how you can blame the GAA itself for this. The organisation itslef doesn’t promote that sort of training or anything. Its the teams manager or commitee that organises these bootcamp-style events. Take it up with them or the clubs childrens liason officer. If that fails, then go to the county board.
It’s but a scratch
I don’t understand why players in an amatuer club game would accept that type of carry on.
> This is the cult of the GAA
Hard to take you post in good faith when this is included. For all I know these knees are suffering from turf burn from the astro during an easy kick around.
But assuming the post is true. This is not the cult of the GAA. It’s a few of head the balls who do not reflect anything only their own lunacy. I’d get onto the club’s children’s officer and complain. If there were other under 18s involved, I’d also try to get their parent’s on board to complain. The other players who refused to take part might also complain (to the secretary or chairman if they’re adults). Make as much of a splash about this as you can. This sort of shite has no relation to proper team preparation.
Huh. Growing up in South Africa, this is the kind of “army” hazing they would do to new high school rugby players. Never did anything except injure or scare away young boys from sports, and would give cruel older boys a chance to hurt the younger ones. Never met anyone who thought they were better off for it.
I’ve had worse than a pair of skinned knees after a fall playing chasing
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But of course this is reddit so the GAA bashing will continue until morale improves
and it’s gas that some of the best clubs would do pilates/barre/ballet as ways to finesse their teams S&C
You’ve 2 options, say nothing, maybe pull your 17 yr old out of it, and be OH SO IRISH about it
Or speak up, and ask people (especially other GAA parents of young kids) to be honest when they see those pics, and ask is that what they want their kids to be funneled into as the years go on
idk, no matter what club/organisation/group i’ve seen, there’ll always be a few headers. Seems like you’ve a few there who *also* feel they’re going to be unchecked
Love to know how much money the club spent on hiring them for 90 minutes.
Oh no dose you little boy have a booboo.
How many other clubs do this within the GAA?
>one of the worst performing teams in the lowest league in the county
Do they think this sort of hazing is meant to IMPROVE team morale?! This is worse than any rugby hazing I was put through
to be fair that sounds like a great evenings entertainment
Overprotective parent alert. He’s an adult or close to it, no one is making him go.
Jesus bring him to A&E to be safe, their some of the worst cuts I’ve ever seen
Have you got their number, my u8s team need a serious attitude adjustment
Fuck me would you catch yourself on. It’ll not do him a button of harm. Might actually be good for him. Couple of wee grazes on his legs and you’re making out like he’s spent a week getting waterboarded in Guantanamo Bay.
Shelbourne do this pre-season. I think Damien Duff is related to somebody high up in the Irish Army.
It’s more of a team bonding exercise.
I don’t see an issue with it. A grueling session as part of pre-season is pretty common. Even in soccer where they have the best training money can buy you’ll see teams do similar gauntlets. It can help team bonding and also get players accustomed to keep pushing when they’re already wrecked. It can make the difference at the end of a game when running instead of walking can impact a game winning play. At the end of the day it’s a senior team, everyone is there because they want to be.
Jesus I hope none of your sons mates have reddit.
A shit coach does not equal the ‘cult of GAA’. This subreddit is basically text-based Liveline at this point.
Marty Morrissey appreciates your flesh sacrifice.
It will toughen him up, not sure why you’re complaining, these kind of things toughen a young lad up. If you disagree, put him into another sport.
If they have time for training GAA players, they’re not DFA Ranger Wing
I’m a coach in a different sport where I did a safe guarding course with sport Ireland.
One interesting note that the course leader raised was that the code of conduct of your club has a line “you may not use physical punishment” for any of the children / vulnerable adults.
The interesting note being, having one of the kids do push-ups for example would be a physical punishment.
You might think this is ridiculous (so do I to an extent) but you can also clearly see how that can be abused, e.g. picking one kid to do 200 pushups etc. where it’s clearly excessive and bullying.
What happened here is a clear violation of the sport Ireland guidelines and I would certainly be looking to contact the child safety officer within the club at the very least.
I used to have the same opinion until I realised that these lads actually enjoy playing the sport even if the training is stupidly tough for a team that wont win, if the lads aren’t enjoying it then don’t play its pretty simple. They’re all adults or close enough to make that decision. I stopped playing when I turned 18 because I wasn’t enjoying it, I was shite anyway so no one cared but still I don’t think for a second that anyone who goes out on a pitch is hating every second of it and still playing.
That’s the worst scrapped knee I’ve ever seen. It might even be elevated to a cut. Get down to the A&E asap, and don’t forget the capri suns and club milks for the waiting times. Time is of the essence with this one!
Those injuries aren’t bad however you should be extra attentive to your son (and his friends?) For a while. Stuff like that can traumatize people. Chatting with him about it in a very non judgemental way may help.
Long term, teaching him to be more assertive would also help. As a young person he’s going to be more vulnerable to authority figures abusing him than an experienced adult like you or I, and this is abuse. Make no mistake, it is abuse. Armies do shit like this to break people down, to abuse them until they don’t stand up for themselves anymore.
Also a less serious suggestion: find the coaches car next training session and shove a screw in his front tire. Cheers 😉
Our club definitely had these 3 same guys in last year, a few weeks out from championship. It honestly seemed like they enjoyed belitting and abusing players. I know these things as supposed to build character, but I honestly think they do the opposite
Our team were one of the favourites to win rhe championship of a high enough level, but you could pin point the moment things went sour to this day. Players were pissed as we were told we were playing a match only to arrive to 3 goons abusing us for 90 mins. One of them seemed to get great enjoyment picking on the weaker young players.
Example, we had a drill where we need to crawl on our bellies while pushing a log across the pitch. You worked in two’s (team of 6), so you’d alternate every few minutes where the next lad behind you would come front and you would fall to the back. We had one guy who is only out of minor and wouldn’t be too confident in himself. One of the goons start roaring at him as he was physically gassed. He was lagging behind me pushing the log. When he caught up to me to switch over, I told him to just keep crawling and I will keep pushing. The goon then berates me saying who do I think I am and that it’s not up to me to decide who goes.
I looked him in the eye and said if a member of my team is in need, I will help him and in this moment my teammate needs help so I am going to fucking help him. He snarls at me and says don’t fuckikg eyeball me or talk back. I just laughed and kept on going as we were just at the end. When we got there the young player was literally gassed out. I lifted him up and told him he’s doing a great job and to not mind that eejit.
At the end of the “camp” we had to lift all the equipment and place it back in their van. I lifted a few of the Jerry cans into the van while the goon who berated me was there and placed them in front of him and looked at him and smiled and said hope you have a nice day, and then walked away.
I honestly thought he was going to fire the Jerry can at the back of my head, he had that much anger in his face 😂
The GAA defo need to look at where they are going, as this shite isn’t part of the ethos of the GAA. Too many managers think they are being ahead of the curve with stupid stuff like this, when their team can’t kick the ball over the bar!
Out of curiosity how old is your child ?
Id be questioning commintment if my training was injuring me without any added benefit to my health and level of skill and development.
Needs to be skilled based and fun, that nonsense turns players away