Athletics in Dublin in huge trouble

Tingle wrote: »

Looking at the Irish team and our big performers and not just in Barca it is pretty obvious that there are very few top athletes from Dublin being produced. Aside from Gillick, there is nobody.

Derval - Cork
Heffernan - Cork
Gillick - Dublin
Hession - Galway
McSweeney - Cork
Smyth - Derry
Whelan - Waterford
Galligan - Kildare
Griffin - Leitrim
4 x 100 women (Down, Wateford, Kildare, Cork)
4 x 400 men (Cork, Dublin, Wexford, Kilkenny)
Cuddihy - KIlkenny
O' Keeffe - Kilkenny
Cragg - Joburg
Fagan - Westmeath
Chamney - Tipperary
Campbell - Kildare

Could go on.

Very few Dubs despite 25% of the population. Why is it? Their clubs are among the strongest but they struggle to produce elites. Are they all robbing cars or high on heroin? Are they all pregnant aged 15? Seriously though, there was a study conducted in Australia that found a large percentaqe of elite athletes come from provincial towns or cities.

So, why doesn't Dublin produce top class athletes anymore? The pipeline is provincial too. Mageean, Patterson, Robinson and Maher at World Juniors are all culchies. Mark English and Kate Veale at youths.

Dublin, you are letting us down!!! Step up and do your bit.

Its a sad day when Dublin produces the same amount of international athletes as the likes of Leitrim and Sligo. I think its all the distractions such as night clubs and social atmosphere etc. They dont have any distractions down in culchie land only farming and obviously running the land aka Brian Maher. We need to produce more Dublin athletes but never fear cloniffe is here.

Has it ever been any different. Even the hayday in middle distance was:
Coughlan - Dublin
Tracey - Waterford
Flynn - Longford
O'Meara - Limerick
O'Sullivan - Cork.

Krusty_Clown wrote: »

I grew up in the southside of Dublin, and never had a sniff of a running club or running as a sport as a youth. They simply didn't exist. Not that I had any talent for running, but I had absolutely no awareness that such a thing existed, which would've been the same for all of my friends and other kids in the area. Sports-day included a lap around the football pitch, but that was about it.

My OH is from Roscommon, and all of my nieces and nephews participate in community games (regardless of their talent) across the entire range of athletics disciplines, so youth talent at least has a chance of shining through.

So I wouldn't say it's a reflection that Dublin doesn't have any talent. More a reflection that it doesn't get nurtured, unless you happen to live beside one of the running clubs or have parents that were themselves involved in the sport.

Coming from the north side of Dublin I had a totally different take on it. From Primary school level there was always the sports day but also the days out to santry , St Anns park etc to race against other schools.

Local clubs set up all in most of the areas and more races that you could shake a stick at , from North Dublin ChampionC to the trace races in Santry again, Also remember a grass track somewhere, maybe it DCU but that wasnt around then.

I Know in the 80's/90's everyones parents seemed to be runners too .

Maybe the south dublin lads just love their polo and cricket too much

Tingle wrote: »

West of the Shannon and north of Killaloe is a different kettle of fish, doesn't follow the normal Culchie superiority (with notable exception of Hesh).

My geography outside of the kingdom that is the PALE is a little poor. But isn't Sligo outside of your normal culchie superior boundaries? I think a certain ms Mary Cullen should be added to your list of "magnificent muckers"

Tingle wrote: »

West of Shannon, north of Killaloe, south of Sligo then.

Grand new boundaries have been drawn. At least us dubs can take the intellectual high ground in these physical arguments.

Was just talking to one of the coaches of a good South Dublin team, they have over 400 on their books, busier than ever, and some world class athletes among them (the two ffrench-O'Carrolls were training as we spoke). The problem he mentioned was talented kids dropping out at the age of 15 or 16, either to continue other sports careers in sports with more exposure (Rugby, soccer), or to hang with friends who have started drinking/clubbing. I don't know how specific this is to Dublin (maybe more attraction in the bright Dublin city lights than an a Saturday evening of welly-throwing in Roscommon?), but I'd imagine there's less avenues for talented non-Dublin athletes to meander along, than would be the case for a talented Free-Stater.

donothoponpop wrote: »

Was just talking to one of the coaches of a good South Dublin team, they have over 400 on their books, busier than ever, and some world class athletes among them (the two ffrench-O'Carrolls were training as we spoke). The problem he mentioned was talented kids dropping out at the age of 15 or 16, either to continue other sports careers in sports with more exposure (Rugby, soccer), or to hang with friends who have started drinking/clubbing. I don't know how specific this is to Dublin (maybe more attraction in the bright Dublin city lights than an a Saturday evening of welly-throwing in Roscommon?), but I'd imagine there's less avenues for talented non-Dublin athletes to meander along, than would be the case for a talented Free-Stater.

Too right, the drop-off rate is horrendous. The big numbers from U12-U14 to the scarcity of anyone much in the older groups is astonishing. Just by scanning the Dublin age-group championship results it's obvious.

A drop-off around this age is common across GB and ROI (and no doubt elsewhere) and across all sports - though team sports suffer less. There may be an element of 'bright lights' that affects Dublin in particular. However and conversely, in GB the hotspots are most definitely in the metropolitan areas.

I keep coming back to the paucity of good coaching (though there is some good work going on.) A beginner-coach can take a boy or girl to a certain level through basic knowledge and the natural enthusiasm of the youngster. However there will be a levelling-off in achievement unless there is expertise on hand to drive the youngster onwards and upwards. If this does not happen then enthusiasm wanes quickly.

That's when Gaelic, soccer, netball etc gets the benefit of our training

I believe something that would help solve the problem would be to abolish the current automatic qualification for a dublin juv champ for the all irelands. The athletes from dublin should compete in the leinsters. This may give another goal to the to athletes from dub who ease through dublin but struggle at nationals. If the athletes first of all try to win the leinsters and have this as a goal and then when they achieve this, they can aim to do well at nationals with the confidence of leinster titles behind them.
It would also make the quality of the leinsters higher which would spur on other athletes from leinster and make them up their performance.

Tingle wrote: »

Can anyone explain why there have been so few senior elite from Dublin in recent years when a place like Cork that maybe a tenth it's size as
had 4. I'm coming back to think it's attitude. The ills people talk about like drop out, other sport, drinking etc are all available in the country too. It's got to be attitude until somebody can give a decent explaination to the contrary.

I put it down to mental, sure we all know that evryone from Cork thinks they are the greatest thing since sliced bread. Maybe its what we need up in the Big smoke:D

Tingle wrote: »

So you could argue that at underage the Dubs do ok internationally. What explains the fall off at participation at global age group champs or senior champs. Maybe it's not a numbers game and they are soft. At juvenile it's easy, you have your coach, your friends, you win lots. You hit junior, your friends who were slow quit, you are on your own, you may need to find a new coach, you may start getting beat in races and generally you have to stand on your own two feet.

Can anyone explain why there have been so few senior elite from Dublin in recent years when a place like Cork that maybe a tenth it's size as
had 4. I'm coming back to think it's attitude. The ills people talk about like drop out, other sport, drinking etc are all available in the country too. It's got to be attitude until somebody can give a decent explaination to the contrary.

I think you are close to hitting the nail on the head there re coaching. I honestly think there is far better coaches in Cork than we have in the capital in some areas. If we look at middle/long distance, Cork as produced Marcus O'Sullivan, Mark Carroll and a host of other top class National talents over the years such as: Liam O'Brien, John Murray, Ken Nason, Martin McCarthy, Declan O'Callaghan, Cathal Lombard etc etc. On the ladies side we had Sonia and Anita Philpott and many more National Class athletes.

In cork though they had the benefit of Bro John Dooley, Der O'Donovan, Sean Kennedy, Liam Kelleher, Donie Walsh and some others.

In Dublin there was Peter Mc and Eddie McDonagh. Now its Eddie really.Clonliffe aren't bringing athletes through anymore. Other clubs are working hard to get numbers such as Celtic and Brothers Pearse but the coaches there can only take them so far as by all accounts they don't have the know how to do it. It's not a criticism, they just need to upskill and in the meantime pass on the good athletes to better coaches who can bring them to the next level. Too often coached are territorial and try to keep athletes, even at the expense of progression.

ecoli wrote: »

Is he not Limerick?

I think some Dublin coaches are not being given enough credit here

John Shields has been doing wonders with Brian Gregan over the last few years
John Downes has been doing wonders with John Travers and is pretty much reviving the junior side of Donore
Cant remember who coached her but Rose Anne Galligan was actually raise and trained in Dublin
John Coughlan has been doing great things with Stephen Colvert and Brian Murphy
Eddie McDonagh Adam Jones Dick Hooper and Jim Davis are also names to be mentioned

I dont think that coaching is the problem as there seems to be an abundance of high quality coaches but athlete ratio doesnt seem to correlate

Who does Jim Davis train now that young Darcy has gone off the scene.