City of Derry plan for 2021 season with new club structure

Last week’s IRFU decision to conclude the 2019/20 fixture list with immediate effect caught some by surprise and was never going to appease everyone. There are winners and losers with such drastic measures, but these are drastic times.

One man not caught out by the decision was City of Derry Head Coach, Paul O’Kane. If you’re a ‘glass half full’ kind of person, the local club had every reason to feel aggrieved at the early whistle, sitting just eight points off a play-off promotion spot when full time was called on this season’s action.

‘Glass half empty’ though and they were balancing precariously in eighth in AIL 2C, just two points ahead of bottom placed side, Midleton, who held a game in hand.

Other AIL divisions were even tighter so keeping every club happy with an early end was never on the cards but it did provide rugby with one thing few other sports have managed - clarity.

That clarity has prompted soul searching at the Craig Thompson Stadium. Consistency was been the club’s biggest problem during a season in which a staggering 45 players appeared for the First XV, a figure which raises questions over availability and commitment.

It’s a figure that has led to some frank discussions within Judges Road on a issue that’s not black and white. Lack of availability in the amateur game doesn’t always equate to lack of commitment. Life has it’s own way of throwing obstacles in the road of even the most keen amateur sportsman and O’Kane has sympathy for players in the predicament.

Elite level sport, though, is no place for sympathy. ‘Deserve’, as they say, has nothing to do with it. So, with his Director of Rugby hat on this time, O’Kane is hoping to use the extra time provided by the IRFU’s decision to restructure City of Derry so it can become consistent in the elite competitions while also maintaining the club’s crucial social fabric.

“Now the season is over, we’ve been looking at what we have and don’t have and there has been a few epiphanies over the past few weeks,” explains O’Kane.

“Even before the cancellation, we’ve been asking why we’ve struggled for consistency over the past couple of years. When we did a bit of research into what we were using numbers-wise, it was 45 players at first team level last year. That’s a key problem.

“We are far too inconsistent but the reality check is, this is elite level sport and guys we think we have, we don’t actually have because they are unable to commit to that level any more.

“That’s what this next period is about. There will be a few honest and open conversations within the club as regards what people can commit to and what they can’t.

“I want to restructure the club into four tiers in which we have our elite level senior squad, a development side for players aspiring along with players playing top level junior rugby and an academy system for talented young players while we are hoping to push the third team up into junior rugby as well.

“I also think there’s a need for social rugby at the club. We used 65 players at seconds level; 47 at third level, some obviously playing for both. Those numbers suggest a real issue with commitment. There is a need then for a social side where basically whoever is available, we can get them a game of rugby in which there is no pressure and the result is not the be all and end all.”

O’Kane has been chatting with fellow AIL coaches who couldn’t believe the turnover of player at City of Derry.

“Friends who are coaching AIL clubs nearly choked when I told them the number of players we had used this season. They couldn’t get over it. Skerries, for example, used 27 players; Clontarf in AIL 1A used 30 and that has led me to think we have to change.

“Even at the top, not club has 40 first team players so we need clarity as to who will be in the senior squad. We are aiming for at least 26 or 27 guys - a 14 forwards, 12 backs split - and trying to give the player clear information as to what they need to be available for.

“There are around 26 games in a season and we need these guys at squad training twice a week with three or four minimum gym sessions. The reality is when we talked to a few of the guys, they can’t commit to that any more. These are good players and great club men and usually it is to do with life circumstances, but we have to be realistic.”

It’s a move which may seem some club stalwarts take a back seat but O’Kane is adamant he doesn’t want to lose their experience from the club despite having to play the long game which means a close season recruitment drive.

“We are going to have to recruit, that’s abundantly clear, but we still have some superb talent at the club though this is going to be a major change.

“The key issue for those guys who can’t commit to the senior squad is we don’t want to see them disappear from the club. I’ve had chats with older players who said playing too long at the top end left them p****d off totally with the game so they didn’t want anything from it when they stopped and we want to avoid that.

“We have some big players, great players, who maybe coming toward the end in terms of playing at the top end but they are still a massive resource for the club. We’ll need those experienced lads for the younger guys to learn off.”

The season past may have brought inconsistency but it also provided plenty of lessons O’Kane is determined to learn from and address when play finally returns in the future.

“Mike Poole put it very well when he said, with all the pre-season disruption, including losing some big talents we weren’t expecting to lose and were unable to replace, to come out of the season not being ran adrift has to be a success.

“There were key moments which could have improved it further still. We lost with the last play of the game for the first two weeks of the season - victories there would have had us up in third.

“We still felt we had an ability to sneak into fourth but the main thing was always AIL status and to that end we live to fight another day and we have learned a lot as regards knowing what we have to do.

“Learning though is the easy bit. Now is the hard task of trying to recruit the talent we need to supplement the squad. There is talent around here but we want guys who can commit totally to the level we are playing at and give it a real crack. I’ll be talking to some potential new guys over the coming weeks after we have spoken to all our own squad.”