You are Here: Home>Sections>Coaches Corner>News & Events

Printer Friendly Version of this Page   Contact Us   SiteMap

St Brigids Welcomes New Club Coach on Board - Wed, 9 Nov 2005

St Brigid's GAA welcome John Ryan as Games promotion office to the club filling the gap caused by the departure of Martin Kennedy to Australia where he has gone to further his career as a sports scientist after a highly successful tenure with St Brigid's.

John hails from Portroe in County Tipperary and will focus primarily on the development of hurling. This, together with the significant sponsorship deal announced recently with Pat O'Donnell is set to ensure the success of hurling at the club. This year alone the St Brigid's U15 team won the championship while the U11 team won the Division 1 league while the Senior team is riding high in their championship and the junior adult team faces a semi final replay shortly.

John will work closely with the local primary schools to help develop this ancient and skilful game and will promote both hurling and Camogie as well as working closely with the team mentors to raise the overall standard of coaching at all levels in the club. In this he will follow on from the highly successfully Foundation and level 1 coaching courses run by his predecessor, Martin Kennedy.

John brings loads of experience to the task having coached teams from U18 up to minor for the last 8 years and run numerous summer camps for the last 5 years. The upcoming Easter and Summer GAA camps are already being planned and look like being a repeat of last year's successes.

John also brings a solid academic background with him to St Brigid's He holds a Sports and recreation management diploma and recently graduated from the University of Wolverhampton with a BA (Hons) in Sports Studies. This degree incorporated different aspects of sports coaching, sports science and the sociology of sport. John also holds other important qualifications in first aid and child protection.

It's not all theory for John though, and he also has a fine playing career under his belt where he played at all levels for Portroe in both hurling and football and is currently a member of their senior hurling team.

He has won a number of county senior hurling leagues with his club and was also a member of the team that won the All-Ireland senior 7 a side hurling tournament in Kilmacud Crokes in 1999.  These days John can be seen on TG4 where he is on the panel of the Underdogs hurling team who set to face a showdown with Kilkenny in December.

John will join Toms Broderick the full time football coach at St Brigid's and together they will help ensure that the club ethos of ?fun, fair play and enjoyment? is passed on to every player who togs out from the U6's to the over 40's.When asked how he viewed his new Job with St Brigid's GAA John stated that he was really looking forward to the challenge ahead of promoting hurling in St.Brigid's. He is particularly excited about the ambitious development plan at St Brigid's which will shortly see a full size all weather pitch being added to the existing facilities at the Russell Park Complex. On a final note the hurling nursery has moved indoors for the winter month and now takes place on a Friday evening at Russell Park.

Return To Previous Page