 A coaching conference was on letter Kenny at the weekend and it's fitting that a local woman, Briggs McGinty, is the coach of the year, got the coach of the year award recently and she has an UEFA A licence and recognised for her impact on coaching here in Donegal and beyond Donegal as well because she's had an impact on the Republic of Ireland team helping Amber Barrett and Keira Grant amongst others along the way and I'm glad now that Briggs joins us for a chat in the studio. Briggs, congratulations on the award first of all. Thanks very much. And the weekend, I heard Oshin in sport referencing it, did it go well? During the week, there was a lot of planning on it I think last year but in Galway and Nail had said to the Braindorian and Trevor Scanlon that it would be moved to Donegal this year and I suppose there's a lot of planning up until the weekend but the weekend was excellent. The speakers like the high profile people that they brought up to speak to people in Donegal, coaches came from all over. Including Vera Pau. Vera Pau, Aileen Gleason, Sharon from, she's in Bristol, she's a sports psychologist. James Scott, under 17 international manager, did a session, pitch session. Mark Cannon, the high performance director in the FAI was up and like these are all calibre great people to have. Was it well attended, was it well supported? Is there an appetite for more information? There was I think there was 60 in total that was there. Now there could have been a lot more like everything people register in and then things happen on the day that they aren't able to attend but now overall they were happy with the attendance. Now on Sunday morning there were more attending when it was a pitch session like more as everything coaches fell around the pitch than they are in a classroom style or whatever so I would say that's why the Sunday session seemed to have more attendees. Well women's football is it's on the up and up, let's face it. And now with Ireland involved in the World Cup it's only going one way and it's going to be the whole buzz of the year really leading up to the World Cup. The first game is the 20th of July so from July till the middle of August then. It's going to be full on and it's going to be brilliant and it's going to be what we're all talking about. But you know with that then comes a need for more coaches and more women coaches and I suppose the pathways are a lot better. There's a lot more opportunities and it's a lot easier now than when you started back in 2007. Yeah it definitely is. There's more like the FBI have re-energised their system that they're female only coaches and to help and even just workshops basically one hour workshops so that you can either do it online or they come out to local clubs or whatever to actually encourage people to get on the pathway. Now a lot of the boys teams like any club they'll have coaches for boys and I think clubs are afraid to get involved in girls football because they're like oh we need females we need females but like it's that perspective. Yes females are involved for the personal element and the coach player relationship builds better with a female but still males can be involved like that's what the FBI have said like there's loads of men working in the female game great experience but can they assist now more females getting on the pathway so that they can give them their expertise and knowledge to help the female on the pathway. Okay so if there isn't a female coach in the club don't let it be a reason not to start a women's team. No definitely not like you can have like if you look is there female coaches in the boys games yeah there is so what's the difference in a female coach in a boy than a male coach in a female so it's an old people saying best practice is to have a female but it's not essential if you have two males that are willing to take an under 10 team if they have all the procedures in place why not just go for it. But it would be nice to see more women coming through coaching I mean there's women refs now and you know we want more and more women coaches as well. Yeah well I know in Donegal lately like we have had so many females coming through the pathway like there's before have females come via females and more via females Milford like there is a lot of clubs that have the female coaches Jumbar I'm trying to think I'll probably left our clubs that have female coaches and I think a lot of clubs have female coaches but whenever I was starting out it was where them female coaches actually got support like I would go to a pitch and if something happened during a game that it was unsure of there was nobody there to support me so whereas now there's that support thing that if there's something happen in a game they can the networking and women's football it doesn't matter what club you are the network seems to be better that you can actually approach somebody in another club now lately we've got the 17 and 19 girls in the coaching ladder and there's 10 of them going to do a national or the UFAC license in October so it's brilliant like they've come their PDP one two and three the national D and like to have them and their coach in the local clubs which will only help the younger generation of players. It's about the foundations it's about it's about having a structure in place and then you know people can tap into the the pathways and and do these licenses you've gone all the way to UFA is that correct so is there is there's something beyond UFA? Well there's two more there's the elite which I'm starting now in March and then the pro which is an ambition but if that ever happens it's another thing but the elite I'm doing that now so that'll there'll only be one that'll be the last one to the pro. You've been involved with Gainer Cup squads with the the women's league academy let a Kenny AT the then they call women's league and now that a Kenny Rovers and you're you're saying off air there you're starting from scratch at that a Kenny Rovers. Yeah like initially whenever I would start a coaching it would have been with Lagan and Lagan has had a lot of success in Gainer Cupball and the committee there were great so it's a new challenge now going into Rovers starting from scratch they it's I think it's 15 years since they had a female team now they were very successful in the time they won their intermediate cup they won a junior cup John McLaughlin I think was the manager of the team that won one of the intermediate cups I think they actually won two before so I'm not sure who the first manager was and then in the junior cup Johnny Baird would have had the junior element in it but then it all fell down so then now after 15 years the committee's like wants to get new and it's set up like there Kenny's a massive area massive population and it's just to tap into them on played players and try to give them a pass forward. Yeah because there's more of an appetite there's there's there's more you know girls coming through there's more women who want to play football for one reason or another so so it's important that that clubs have have a team in place for them and to accommodate them yeah and coaches to go with that whether that's male or female yeah like you it's a social element as well like everybody over the last couple of years we covered it's the release of that the player welfare has to come out and try to get them like an hour's exercise like if you go on to a pitch doesn't matter how bad a day you had if you go on to a football pitch somebody will have a joke somebody at the end of the session you'll have had a laugh about four or five times so the pressure of everyday life is lifted for me that you have that release and its mental health benefit as well if you if you look at it it's back like but and and it's been evolved in a in a team setup as well and everything that goes with that and you you make you make I was chatting to a parent down at the aura on sunday morning those young fellas are overtraining and we were just chatting about you know having having that network having that network and then if you train with fellas and you play with fellas and you're you're part of a team setup and then you'll have made friends for life and and some of them go off and play with other teams and you'll go you know go your own way but you'll always you'll always bump into them here and there going through life and and you might have played under 14s or something with them but you'll always you know be able to say hello and yeah and and you're always bumping into them yeah like I know when the girls go to gain a cup you're playing against other counties or league centres or whatever but like they're under 14 at gainer but I know from there they meet the other clubs and they get on snapchat or whatever whatever social media platform they're on and some of them haven't met they went into college and they go into college the first day and somebody that they met at the gainer cup is in their class they have a connection they're like it's an easy it's a settled in phase in the college very quick rather than going in and no nobody so like they might have seen one another for 10 years but they still have that connection then when they go to and then end up playing college football together so the learning continues for you and for your next license now what what is involved is there a lot of trips to Dublin are you able to do anything online it's a full year continuous assessment we have five blocks in Dublin and three day blocks and you go up and then there's a lot of assessments to do club work that'll have to be involved in it so and then they do club visits so they'll come down and do a club visit two or three times as well so it's just continuous help that they have been great and really supportive in the pathway now whereas before you were just there's the course content and go off and try it yeah well I suppose as as the badges get more prestigious or whatever were important then you know the the responsibility comes bigger and there's there's bigger workload and they go hand in hand yeah they do like Tommy Carrabri was my tutor for the our mentor for the a license and he was up here five times now I found him absolutely brilliant his support his he there was days that your session was absolutely went against everything that you want wanted how it would run and he was like well if you would have did this week tweak at the beginning or in the middle of the session it would have turned out the opposite way for you so he was able to identify this so that for my next session I was able to identify these three things that can make a better session and like if if we would have did them in block like I did the licensing cork and it was five times uh five week weeks in cork various 30 years but like if he if we did them in cork I might have actually tried what he was saying whereas he was up with me as well so it was great like that support and finally Brees just going back to the world cup coming up now in the summer it must you know it must give you a great sense of pride that there's going to go all involvement in that team that'll be playing it's brilliant that you have hopefully they're on the plane like everybody's all the players are anxious um like Vera said the last day at the thing the I think it's the 20th of June she can have up to 50 players now are named but the 10th of July she has to name 23 so that pressure of that week or that couple of days and players not knowing like everybody that's in the panel currently they don't they don't know we're on the plane hopefully hopefully that they're a minimum of two if not more like there's high potentials in Donegal that are tapping on the door that are just up at home based training camps or that it might come you think it might come too soon for them they may need another but like if the football keeps evolving and hopefully that this won't be our only world cup to qualify that it'll go on in four years time in two years time it'll be euros in four years in another world cup so hopefully that the way the structures are in place that it'll keep going and keep building and then players will get their chance absolutely well who will look forward to it and continued success with your own coaching career and I'll I'll let it it will bring beach thanks so much thank you very much are you ready to experience something extra