2020

TUARASCÁIL AN RÚNAÍ 2020 - SECRETARY REPORT 2020

Críostóir Ó Ruanaidh Runai

CHAIRMAN’S ADDRESS TUARASCÁIL AN RÚNAÍ 2020 My first year as Chairman was quite Its been an honour to serve as Rúnaí of Bryansford GAC, for challenging losing so many close my first year, what a year it was! I don’t think anyone could members but this year has been null have predicted the year we experienced. New challenges for void due to COViD 19. On the field us all, our players, our supporters, for our families and our wider of play, our underage teams have club community. Without over exaggeration, we must excelled which needs to be consider ourselves lucky to be part of this great club and the nurtured, sadly our Senior Teams wide and supportive community to whom we belong. underachieved which has been the pattern for the past 2 decades. For many years I never appreciated the efforts of our club Committee in ensuring the club functions successfully, from Off the field, our Club stepped up the Chair through the Treasurer to all committee members. I during the COVID crisis helping our am humbled to have had the opportunity to be part of such local community. Our Club is just not a great team. about football, we take pride in our Culture i.e. Irish School, Irish Dancing It has been with deep great regret that we were unable to & our Ulster Champions, Scor Group. celebrate our annual club awards for the 2019 season or the marking of 50 years since our first historic 1970 Ulster title. We I propose to set up a separate also faced significant challenges with so many club members account named “Friends of taking time away from the club. As we move forward into Bryansford”, to help with the 2021, I hope to encourage back our seasoned members and purchase of St Patrick’s Park and will welcome new members into our club and committee. only be used for this purpose. I propose all donations from The season started off with a bright outlook, Senior men benefactors to be put into this playing in the Ulster League, challenging pitch and hall account. I propose a small working bookings for juvenile training, however, from March 13th GAA group should be set up to take this as we knew it came to a complete halt. Covid 19 had a forward. devastating impact on society, however, it also gave us opportunity to demonstrate the value Bryansford GAC has in The group should made up of our community. Our members provided outreach to interested people who may not vulnerable families in Newcastle and surrounding areas have direct involvement of the through food deliveries and shopping trips as well as provided Committee i.e. veterans of the funding to St Vincent De Paul. Our coaches looked for novel Bryansford Team of the late 60’s & ideas to keep our juvenile members entertained through a 70’s mixed with the young coaches ‘Bin Challenge’ which was extremely popular on social media who are our future. and during this time we topped our County and finished fifth

in Ulster in a walking competition.

As part of the GAA return to play, our call for help with a new 1. Robust governance Covid Supervisor role was answered by our members and arrangements. parents of our juvenile players, I personally thank all for the 2. Encourage others to invest in the support during these unprecedented times through, long term with an opt out clause commitment and teamwork we kept our club open with no if necessary. confirmed covid cases throughout the season. 3. Encourage donations from people with a vested interest in After a short break, our Committee activities continued through the future of Bryansford online Zoom meetings which allowed us to keep the club 4. The 2 Accounts to remain ticking over. I thank Ryan McDonald and Stephen Brady who separate. kept our grounds in tip top condition and also Eddie and Joan 5. A process of acknowledging Keating who returned to carry out essential club maintenance. donations e.g. family name on a Before long we were back into training and competitive brick or other ideas. action, both with and without spectators! 6. A sense of pride in the development of the future of our Unfortunately, we were unable to host our annual Michael Club. Hanley and Peter Walsh Tournaments, Cul Camp, Easter and 7. A sense of ownership, Summer Camps were also cancelled. All fundraising activities inclusiveness & embrace which our club relies on for financial survival severely impacted. diversity. To our sponsors this year, The Donard, Sunnyholme Caravan Park, Blackbox Donuts, Nugelato, and all those that supported Noel Mc Donald, the club, thank you, your continued support in these Cathoirleach challenging times has contributed to the ongoing activities our 2018 – 2020 club offers the community.

I thank and congratulate our Lotto Committee, without whom we would struggle to maintain financial support. I thank all those that purchase lotto tickets and those who purchased the County Draw ticket. This year we had two £1,000 and one £200 winners. In recognition of the support our members have

shown in purchasing the Draw ticket, the Committee carried out 12 monthly £50 draws for ticket holders. Congratulations to all lucky winners.

I thank all who volunteered to help host county matches, assisting with car parking and stewarding. In a year where we lost so much, we also gained in the ability to host and transmit live streamed local football. I pay tribute to all our volunteers for their time, effort and support to our club, thank you for

everything that you do.

Looking forward to 2021, we hope to see light at the end of the gloomy tunnel, to return to participation in games and all club

activities. To build on the positives from the year past and to get back to doing the things we love most.

I apologise to anyone I have missed mentioning by name, it is not intentional, we are a big club and as such, there is always

so much going on, with so much more unseen than seen.

I sincerely thank the Executive Committee, former Chairman Noel, Treasurer Philip for the help and support given to me in my

role over the last year, it’s been a privilege to sit alongside them at the table. Thanks also to our Vice Chair Peter for getting me involved in the work of the Committee. I thank Philly our PRO and Colm our Fixtures secretary for lots of laughs along the way. To all the Committee members, thank you.

Lastly, I thank my wife Moyra and my children, for their patience

and understanding when I was missing in action doing club things.

Míle Buíochás. Críostóir Ó Ruanaidh Rúnaí

The following sections have been provided by our team managers and I thank all for their feedback. MENS SENIOR MANAGEMENT TEAM

Stephen Poacher Ciaran Brannigan SENIOR TEAM REPORTS Noel McKibbin Senior Mens Team Conor Gribben Brian McVeigh Friday 13th of March, the GAA announce that all GAA activities Gareth Scannell across the Island are to discontinue with immediate effect with Chris Hale a pandemic sweeping across the world in a completely unprecedented event in our lifetimes. It was ironically the day before 50 Bryansford Senior men’s footballers were to embark on a training weekend in the Downings hotel in Donegal, the same training base used by Donegal senior team on regular weekends throughout the year when preparing for big games. That weekend was to be the real catalyst to the senior squad’s preparations, which had begun the previous December with an initial fitness test to gauge where everyone’s baseline level of fitness was at so that the performance lab, strength and conditioning center in Cookstown, could taper and tailor

individual training programmes for our players. This was very much a player driven initiative, funded by the players and driven by the leadership groups and we had a fantastic buy in to the programme with the club’s gym being packed throughout the months of December, Janaury and February.

On the pitch, we started back in January with 2 pitch based sessions a week, sometimes the players doing double sessions on a Sunday morning, one half on the pitch, the other half in the gym, we had collectively, 58 players training, with regular attendance numbers well into the 40’s, never once did we dip below 40 lads training which was fantastic for moral and togetherness and building spirit. We had a very loyal group behind the scenes who organised food for the players on a Friday evening, which was welcomed and appreciated

massively particularly on a cold night.

The decision to enter the Ulster League was taken to allow the lads opportunity to play games early which would assist the management team in getting to know the squad a little quicker, competitive games against St Brigids Antrim and this year’s Tyrone county champions Dungannon, were coupled with challenge games v Longstone, Castleblaney and Leitrim and further games v Slaughtneil and Coalisland had been arranged before the league was due to commence but unfortunately we never got to play these games.

Lockdown March, April, May, June 2020 will live long in everyone’s memory, tactics board videos, gameplan maps, tictocs, fun, craic, quizzes, zooms were all held to lift player’s spirits. Having Bernard Jackman former Irish Rugby international, Tomas O Se

Kerry legend, Nial Morgan Tyrone Goalie, Paul Broderick Carlow’s All Star forward all come onto Bryansford zoom to chat to our players was a brilliant learning experience for them all during those difficult months. As lockdown was slowly coming to an end, Bryansford were one of the very few clubs to totally respect the GAA calls to not return to collective training, instead we relied on the leaders within the group to drive a player driven return to training in small pods until we were officially allowed collectively. Players could be spotted in small groups in Tollymore, Castlewellan Forest park, Murlough beach and running the roads to name a few.

Players returned to training on Wednesday 1st July and we had 57 players in attendance which was fantastic but left us only 2 weeks to prepare for our first league game away to Warrenpoint. The league games v Warrenpoint, Carryduff and Kilcoo were brilliant preparation, particularly the opportunity to play against last year’s top two. Both the league games v Warrenpoint and KIlcoo were hugely attritional and competitive battles and huge credit must go to the players putting the effort and industry in after being away from the game for such a long time, the Kilcoo game was streamed by

Jerome Quinn live and went out across the whole island, with over 100k views on the game on a beautiful sunny evening in Newcastle showcasing St Patrick’s Park in all its glory with Slieve Donard gloriously in the background.

Championship was really what the season was about, league didn’t really have much of a bearing due to no winners or no relegation, and an opening game v intermediate champions Glen on a Sunday afternoon with a small attendance allowed to attend was our opening fixture. The most difficult part of preparing for the championship was having to tell over 15 players they didn’t make the match day squad but testament to the players, they all realised and appreciated the effort and competition that was taking place in training. A win, albeit

making it difficult for ourselves was very much welcomed and for a lot of the senior players it was their first championship win

in the first round for Bryansford in a number of years. The 2nd round would see us paired with the high scoring Clonduff again a Sunday afternoon game in Pairc Esler and certainly it was a game that will live long in the memory. 8 points down at half time, the Ford lads showed some serious

character, spirit and heart to fight back, scoring 1-06 without reply to take the game to extra time. Despite kicking multiple wides at the start of extra time, we fell behind again, only to score a goal and a point late in the second half of extra time

to win the game. The joyous scenes for those involved and the supporters who managed to get to the game were a far cry away from the dark and dismal months of lockdown.

Seeded in the Quarter final, we drew the new kids on the block

Carryduff, a team who has had huge success at U21 level over the last number of years, and unfortunately despite focusing on a quick start, we fell behind to an early goal, we chased this goal the whole half and managed to get back level, but in the

space of 90 mad seconds just before half time we conceded 2 more poor goals and with it went the dream of reaching our first championship final in ten years.

All in all, it was a very positive year for our senior team, we have

made great strides both off the field, in training and on the pitch and we are thoroughly looking forward to moving forward next year and hopefully seeing competitive league football back in St Patricks park on a regular basis.

SECONDS MANAGEMENT TEAM Seconds Team Noel McKibbin

Conor Gribben The seconds league campaign was relatively good with many

off the lads being under 23.

First game was against a strong kilcoo team that had been continuously playing football throughout the season, with our

lads getting just starting to play as a unit with many new faces we lost by a big margin.

After that game the lads played two away games to Saval and Liatroim where they put together to great wins in and ran up

some big scores. We then played a very strong Ballyholland team with many of their seniors playing, losing the match by a a single point, and some could have argued was very questionable.

Then the lads went to Carryduff who were sitting top of the table. The match went down to the last kick of the game, unfortunately Carryduff scored a goal to see us beat by only a point. Overall the young lads showed us that there is plenty of

talented players coming through and the club foundation for the future is strong.

LADIES SENIOR MANAGEMENT TEAM SENIOR TEAM REPORTS Seamus Brannigan Colm Kearney Senior Ladies Team

Conor Doyle Seamus and Ryan Brannigan, Colm Kearney and Conor Doyle Ryan Brannigan took over the ladies this year, with no expectations but to

rebuild Bryansford Senior ladies, as the girls had struggled the two years Previous for various reasons.

They started training around February with a fantastic start, as they had the biggest turn out in numbers for years. They began their training indoors with Cora McKibbin to build strength and mixed this training with the usual pitch work!

The ladies got off to a flying start in their friendlies, winning convincingly against senior teams from Down and Antrim and the ladies continued this level of commitment and work during the build up to the start of the league. However, one week out from their first league game, training was stopped and put on hold, due to Covid 19.

During lockdown the girls continued their own personal training runs etc, The individual commitment during lockdown was vital, when they got the go ahead to train again in the summer months, they turned their focus on to the “summer league”

winning 5 games comfortably and getting beat in just one match that could have went either way, with the Ford ladies missing many key players. A quick turnaround meant they had to prepare next for a round Robin championship, against 3

other senior teams.

They got off to a brilliant start in the championship with a dominating win over Ballymartin. However, in the next round against Castlewellan and first ever ladies club football match

to be streamed live on Facebook, the ladies ended up on the wrong side of the result. They lost a very tight game in almost unplayable conditions and were up against a number of tough decisions that didn’t go in their favour. This left them with a

sizeable score difference to turn around against Carryduff, who had been in the 3 previous county finals. The girls showed great skill and determination and with 5 minutes from the end, they we’re up by two points, only again to get beat by a last surge attack from Carryduff. This was a credit to the girls, who didn't

go out without a fight and in both games, they definitely could have won

The biggest positive to take away from this season was having

a lot of experienced girls coming back into the squad and

plenty of new faces coming up from underage or joining again after quitting football before senior level. The numbers didn’t

drop from start to finish and in a year that was supposed to be about rebuilding, the team put in a great fight in senior championship.

Seamus would like to pay tribute to all the coaches working

below us, from minor right down to underage, as we seen a lot of very talented young players join the squad this season also. Seamus also thanks the girls for all their hard work in the short season they had together and Also thanks his team Ryan, Colm

and Conor for helping with taken the girls this year. Also like to thank Mandy Kearney for taken on the role as covid supervisor.

Finally, a mention of thanks to our senior ladies sponsor Amy Nicholson, Sunnyhomles caravan park for her continued

support towards the ladies.

MENS MINOR MANAGEMENT TEAM MINOR TEAMS REPORTS Jim Magorrian Minor Mens Team Shea Curran Gerard McCartan U17 completed an excellent preseason by winning the East Down Feis sevens by beating Kilcoo, Carryduff and Bredagh.

Due to the lack of dept in the squad, they reluctantly entered the All County B Championship. In a season that was all about getting the lads structure, confidence and enjoying playing for the club they went one better and went the full season unbeaten and successfully won the county Championship beating Ballyholland in the final.

LADIES MINOR MANAGEMENT TEAM Minor Ladies Team Natasha Ferris Amy Nicholson It was a challenging year for our minor girls as we started Donna Smith training early in February for pre-season and unfortunately due to covid the minor league was cancelled. We regrouped in July as championship was rescheduled for September.

Unfortunately, we only got one very tough game against a very strong Bredagh side who are reigning ulster champions. The last

championship match was postponed and unfortunately our girls didn’t get the chance to get a final run out to do themselves justice after the Bredagh game.

There were positives to take though as several of the minor girls

really made progress this year into the senior set up and didn’t look out of place playing for the senior team. It was great to

see the girls grow in strength and confidence and was also encouraging to see after a year of ups and downs.

JUVENILE TEAM REPORTS LADIES U16 MANAGEMENT TEAM U14/U16 Ladies Team Chris Rooney Mandy Kearney It was with deep regret that Bryansford did not field a team in Sarah McAleavey the u14 competition this year. The Team was allocated a position in Division A and with only eight u14 players, it was

considered inappropriate to move so many u12s up to play in such a challenging division. However, all u14 continued training with the u16 age group. following the return to play.

Our u16 girls team competed in the Division C League and Championship. After a promising start to the league, winning in Newry against St John Bosco, the girls lost at home to both Carryduff and Annaclone. To be fair, both matches saw the team up against it with key players missing. However, in the round robin Championship the team put the league

performances behind them, winning away to both Annaclone and Carryduff in exceptionally entertaining matches. Finishing

top of the group the girls hope to play their Championship Final match against Annaclone in March.

The club should be proud of these age groups, a number of these girls have played for our club Minor and Senior teams and several players were selected for County u14, u15 and u16 Teams. The management team thank all parents for their support over the season and look forward to welcoming all players back in the new year.

BOYS U15 MANAGEMENT TEAM U15 Boys Team Jim Magorrian Cathal Burns After a slow start due to Covid 19 our U15 boys built on last Declan Murray year’s disappointment by reaching U15 All County A championship final. Having already proved that they are the best team in East Down they were unfortunately narrowly beaten by Burren in the final. The performance levels and determination from this group of players over the short season was very pleasing and the future for this group of players look promising.

BOYS U13 MANAGEMENT TEAM U13 Boys Team

Declan Murray Training started back for the boys on Tuesday 18th February with Eamonn McCrickard some indoor sessions in Sokol Gymnastics Centre before going Neil King outdoors twice weekly. Unfortunately, training was halted by Stephen Kearney Covid-19 and the last training session the boys had was on Ciaran Clifford Thursday 12th March. Jay Brannigan

Brendan Moore Training started back for the boys on Monday 6th July. The boys Kieran Polly trained twice per week and two teams were entered into the East Down A and C leagues.

Parents got very quickly to grips with completing the health declaration before each training session and game.

A friendly game was organised away to Burren for Saturday 18th July for all panel members. The boys played magnificent and

came away with a 5-14 to 2-4 victory, with all boys getting football. Training still continued two nights per week as well.

The second friendly was organised away to Clonduff on Tuesday 21st July. Again, for all panel members. This time we beat Clonduff 7-11 to 2-4 in another great display.

The U13 A team remained undefeated throughout their league and duly won the league.

In the semi-final of the East Down U13 championships the boys faced RGU and won on a score line of 5-7 to 1-6. This set them up for a final against Bredagh in Drumaness on Saturday 19th September.

Unfortunately, Bredagh won the final by a point on a score line of 3-8 to 3-7. Bryansford were very unlucky and for long periods were clearly the better football team. With an injury to our prominent midfielder and our centre half back, we lost

momentum and the game. Bredagh would go on to beat Ballyholland in the All County A final by two points.

The Development Team would play in the C section and

despite many heroic performances, came up short in at least three games that they could’ve won. 7 players from the U11 section played exceptionally well for the U13 team – gaining confidence in every game. This will set them up for next season.

Our thanks go to all parents for their unwavering support for us as coaches, taking the children to games, training and completing all Covid-19 forms that were asked of them. Thanks also go to the parents of the U11 panel for allowing their children to gain extra experience by playing at a higher level,

receiving more games and seeing it for what it was – a chance to develop further the players.

Lastly thanks go to our main kit and bib sponsors - REMCO (Edward and Laura Murray), HIIT Coffee (JJ and Christine Brannigan) and McCready’s Footwear Newcastle (Garry and Joanne Sloan).

GIRLS U12 MANAGEMENT TEAM U12 Girls Team Shauna McAvoy Anna Mallett This has been a great bunch of girls to train this year. All showing Bronagh Mullholland great potential and willingness to play. Roisin Smyth Throughout the season the girls have been eager to taking part in drills and skills at training and were able to carry this into the matches that they played in. The management team would like to consider arranging training on a different night of the week for next season. The normal fixtures for the age group falls on Wednesdays, with training on a Thursday, it would be better for development of the team to have training a couple of nights before a game.

GIRLS U10 MANAGEMENT TEAM U10 Girls Team Veronica Owens Siobhan Corrigan Due to Covid this year the u10 girl’s year was very short. We had a group of 24 girls and only managed to have 8 weeks of training before everything was closed down.

Unfortunately, the girls had no competitive matches which was very disappointing. On the plus side this year we had help from two parents. Fergal Maguire and Enda Rice.

U11.5 Boys Team BOYS U11.5 MANAGEMENT TEAM Matthew Toner We started the season with just a few training sessions after Aidan Kearney lockdown straight away with a match wasn’t a great start, Paul Laverty and the result didn’t go our way.

After a few training sessions and a couple more matches the lads started to get the momentum going. This team has a good bunch of lads and it was great to get them some football during these tough times. Thanks to the parents and mentors of the age group

BOYS U9.5 MANAGEMENT TEAM U9.5 Boys Team Stephen McKibbin In a strange year for everyone we lost out on the kids development in the lockdown period and when back we had no blitzes or tournaments so as coaches we held a number of training sessions with the aim of enjoyment developing skills with a little bit of competitiveness included.

As coaches we felt that happened and went well. We even had an in-house blitz which was well received. A strange year but a bright future with this group

BOYS U7.5 MANAGEMENT TEAM U7.5 Boys Team Shea Curran What can really be said other than Coronavirus. What we had planned as a great year for the kids turned out to be a non- starter due to the horrible pandemic that swept the world. That

being said we obviously did back to some sort of football and we made sure the kids, parents and coaches all enjoyed what

they played and watched.

We had on average 30+ kids turn up every Saturday morning and it was always a brilliant effort from each child to learn the new skills that was asked of them and also try and bring them

into a match scenario.

We didn't enter any blitzes this season due to Covid-19 but the football our kids put on show every Saturday at training showed

the coaches that if the Gaelic season hadn't been disrupted we definitely would have put on some show of great football.

On behalf of all the coaches we would like to thank the club for allowing us to get the kids back and play some football. We

are already looking forward to the new season and planning is well underway.

SCÓR TEAM SCÓR REPORTS Louise Brady This year our club has been represented in several categories Mandy Kearney in the Scor Sinsir. Eamon McCrickard Orla Magennis Eamon McCrickard and Orla Magennis entered Solo singing. Michael Valentine The Ballad group, Michael Valentine, Clare Cunningham, Orla Clare Cunningham Magennis and Louise Brady who claimed runners up at the East Noel McKibbin Down Final. Calum McDonald Monica Cope Our most successful category this year was that of the Novelty Sarah Lavety Act, which had crowds in stitches as they showed what life was like in an Irish passport office. Eamon McCrickard, Noel McKibbin, Calum McDonald, Monica Cope, Mandy Kearney, Sarah Laverty, Clare Cunningham and Louise Brady won East Down Final and became County Champions.

They continued their success by winning the Ulster Semi Final in Glenullan and are currently awaiting Scor Sinsir Final which is delayed due to the Covid19.

Our aim is to increase our entries each year and a big focus for the future will be to filter this to our junior members.

HEALTHY CLUB TEAM ULSTER GAA HEALTHY CLUB STEP CHALLENGE Emma Kelly

Therese Ruddle The Ulster GAA Healthy Clubs competition was divided across Louise Brady the country with competitors aiming to take as many steps as Carleen Kane possible. Sarah Laverty Paula McLaughlin With 100 clubs participating our 16 competitors finished top in Anna Mallett the County Down Section and 5th in Ulster. This was a Donna Smith

Andrea King remarkable achievement as our team just met the minimum Sarah Lennon number of participants to enable the club to take part. Well Sean James Brannigan done to all. Noleen Jaidane Martin Mooney Kevin Durkin