In 2012, Cricket Leinster’s girls Easter camp was held outdoors at Leinster cricket club on three fairly miserable rainy days. Last year, we moved indoors due to snow, and this year we are indoors but using the outdoor facilities at Saint Columba’s College as the weather has been pretty good. Imagine you could rely on the Irish weather!
None the less, our sessions have been as well attended as they have been in years gone by, approximately 30 girls attending each session. A total of 59 girls have been coached intensively over the 3-day camp.
The aim of the camp was to provide the Leinster girls with some additional skills to add to what they have learnt over their winter sessions. It was a good opportunity for the girls to see where they are at in the early part of the season, and fine-tune anything for their upcoming club matches and planned Inter-provincial fixtures.
This year the girls were very fortunate to receive coaching from Cricket Leinster’s team of highly experienced Regional Development manager/officers and coaches - Brían O’Rourke, Reinhardt Strydom, Kenny Carroll, Clare Shillington, Fintan McAllister and Amy Kenealy. There has also been great coaching support and experience provided from Naomi Scott-Hayward and Laura Erskine who have worked with the girls over the last year and will be assisting with the U’13 and U’15 tours to Malvern and the U’13 tour to Wales. The girls have also benefitted from a wicket-keeping clinic from Fintan McAllister, and from additional administration support from Colm Mooney.
The camp was centred on providing games’ based learning for the players – by involving the development of a skill within the context of a game. This allowed it to be more enjoyable for the players and encourage a culture of trial and error in order to succeed. The focus was on honing the basic skills required for the girls to develop towards the international cricket arena.
The camp was this year supported by the Irish Sports Council through it’s ‘Women in Sport’ participation scheme.
Over the summer, my role will incorporate supporting the Leinster regional squads with matches and training sessions and targeting girls’ schools to further increase participation levels.
Should anybody want to contact me regarding the girls game or ideas you may have to increase participation my number is 087 6906791 or you can email me on amy.kenealy@gmail.com.
Amy Kenealy
Grass-Roots Cricket Development Officer
South Dublin County Council and Cricket Leinster