For the first time, held during the Easter holidays, two Cricket Leinster girls’ camps were held at Leinster Cricket Club.
Both the Under 13 and Under 15 age groups each had 30 players attend the camp, in what was a landmark event.
The aim was to provide players with an early-season outing, putting the winter practice which has been co-ordinated by Barbara McDonald and Sean McCann to the test in a camp full of different games and skills training.
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 Inter-provincial fixtures.
With the recently formed Cricket Ireland 'Emerging Player Programme' that contains benchmarked players from 13-17, there is a real drive to improve the women’s game and Cricket Leinster is playing its part through these camps and further as my role over the summer will incorporate supporting the Leinster Regional Squads by offering one to one and small group coaching sessions to identified players, and also targeting girls’ schools in order to develop sustainable club/school links within the province.
The camp was supported by female coaches, such as Naomi Scott-Hawyard (North Kildare), Laura Erskine (Clontarf) who both have completed their Level One qualifications and Naomi is now on the way to completing her Level Two. We were ably supported by Caoilfhionn Rowan (Mount Anville & Railway Union) who is due to undertake her Level One in the coming months.
Brian O’Rourke, Cricket Leinster’s Development Manager and Nigel Pyne, Cricket Ireland’s High Performance and Girls EPP coach both lent their support during the camp.
Many thanks must go to Leinster Cricket Club and their staff for providing a great venue that allowed such an enjoyable and productive week.
Should anybody want to contact me about further developing the women’s game you can email me on amy.kenealy@gmail.com.
Amy Kenealy
Grass-Roots Cricket Development Officer
South Dublin County Council and Cricket Leinster