TY in CL

I was lucky to spend the past two weeks on work experience with Cricket Leinster. It was great that this was still possible considering the current lockdown restrictions. I was based with Naomi Scott-Hayward (South Leinster Development Manager).

Over the weeks, I got a real insight into what takes place on a daily basis. Due to COVID, this is different than normal times and we’ve been unable to complete the usual coaching/ training sessions or go into schools. Despite this, I’ve been able to pick up new skills and have learned a lot which will be of benefit to me in the future.

Last week, I completed some of the courses made available by Sport Ireland e.g., the Coaching Children Course. I also completed a crash course on how to use MS Excel which will be very helpful to me in many ways.

I have also had the chance to assist in making animation-style videos of some simple cricket games that will shortly be sent out to schools. These videos will be also used by the Development Officers to engage with schools children and create competitions around them.

The software we used to create the animated materials was completely new to me, and I’ve picked up some new computer skills from doing this and figuring out how to use it. I also learnt about how to structure the content and keep focused on making it accessible and engaging for those who will ultimately be viewing the output.

I’ve also had the opportunity to write three articles for the Cricket Leinster website (including this one). I wrote one article on the Women’s & Girls’ Programme at Rush Cricket Club where I am based. And another on the Men’s & Boys’ teams in the club. I really enjoyed this as I got to learn more about my own club in the process. It has greatly assisted me with my writing skills as well as my interviewing techniques! As part of this process, I also had a meeting with Michael Cotter who briefed me how the website is run and how it works which I found this really interesting. Michael is the Competitions Administrator at Cricket Leinster and oversees all fixtures, results and league tables – an onerous task at the height of the season!

As I was primarily based with Naomi, I got to shadow her various Zoom meetings and observe what goes on. This helped me understand how things operate at Cricket Leinster and how much preparation goes into everything they do. It’s much more than I had thought with a lot of hard work going into all events that are run for the benefit of clubs, schools, players, officials and volunteers.

I got an insight into how important things such as data collection are when it comes to coaching and the how connections work between Sport Ireland, South Dublin County Council and the Sports Partnerships, all co-ordinated by Cricket Leinster for our benefit.

I saw first-hand the collaboration that happens on a daily basis between the different Provincial Unions across Ireland on programmes such as Coach Education. It was interesting to see how management and collaboration is all about building relationships between organisations and people.

Overall, the past two weeks have been a great learning experience and I’m glad that I had this opportunity to learn and develop many new skills that I can take into the future. My thanks to Cricket Leinster for this excellent and worthwhile experience.

Rebecca Gough

Loreto Balbriggan & Rush CC