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Replying To ThePowerhouse: "Ok. I fail to see the issue. Evidently, lots of others don't see it as an issue either as all of the clubs mentioned are doing well at various levels. The whole parish thing is a moot point. It's irrelevant in rugby. It's a huge part of the GAA identity but there's no harm in broadening one's horizon beyond the parish pump." There is no issue. The only context here is the challenges that Rugby and even hurlibg(depending on geography) face in comparison to GF and soccer. The lesser point being that both sports would be more accessible if the demand was there. Unfortunately it isnt everywhere. As a hurling man with more than a passing interest in Rugby living in South roscommon I found that quite frustrating and it took a while to get used to those challenges both as a coach and a parent.
Tadhg2020 (Limerick) - Posts: 38 - 24/02/2026 14:50:09
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Replying To zinny: "As of July 2024, there were around 370,000 individuals in Ireland who had played rugby in some form in the past year. Among these were approximately 90,000 players registered by the Irish Rugby Football Union, of whom 75,000 were male. Meanwhile, roughly 280,000 individuals took part in sessions held by community rugby officers between May 2023 and May 2024.
The only number I can find for boxing is 18K members. Its hard to find data on boxing participation.
Anyone who thinks that rugby hasn't got challanges in expansion outside its hinterlands is in dreamland but equally to say that it has not become more popular is also wrong. There are plenty of kids and adults in Ireland who need more sport. A kid they should play as many sports available to them and then let them find their path and keep them at it. Even within the GAA we cannot seem to accept that concept and some GAA people will only want their kids to play one or the other for no other reason than just pure stubbornness." Those stats are interesting, I would never have guessed that 7.2% of Republic of Ireland's population played Rugby last year, does that includes "Give it a try" initiative days where large work or school groups are invited along for a open day type thing? IRFU/Ulster Rugby had been at that up here, to try n recruit more to the men and women's teams and its definitely growing.
Although Donegal is probably an outlier compared to the rest of ROI based on your stats, as while Ulster Rugby has started investing more heavily in the last 3 years to grow participation in the North West, constant participation is still extremely low outside of a few secondary schools when compared to GAA and Soccer, like miles behind.
Commodore (Donegal) - Posts: 1628 - 24/02/2026 15:48:04
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There are as many playing rugby as Hurling - thats the reality now
Its Soccer, Gaelic football & lgfa, rugby, hurling then basketball.
Hurling lads like to call it GAA so as to hide the fact its a minority sport.
In Mayo, you can play Basketball, Rugby or Athletics in winter (although kids athletics seems to be all year round)
then play Gaelic football and soccer in summer, with hurling available in a few spots.
Rugby as risen exponentially in Mayo because of summer soccer - with Rugby now the only outdoor field sport.
The soccer only lads, can play summer soccer in East Mayo and Winter soccer in Sligo.
The biggest problem with keeping kids playing multi sports is flawed coaching philosophies.
I know of U12 Gaelic Coaches who have U12 girls back training in February (without a football) for Go Games in May. With some of the girls are also playing rugby or basketball or Athletics. The coach is promising to "stream" the girls into A&B teams in March - while rugby and Athletics are still going on.
As a general rule, the multi sport girls are better and will either waltz onto the A team when they go back at the expense of girls who are out running around in the pissing rain all February. OR, if the multi sport girls panic, will over train and be injured half the season anyway.
The reason minis rugby (U12), lgfa and Gaelic football have gained so much ground on soccer is that they are supposed to be non competitive up to U12. KIds turn up and have a bit of craic , except in some clubs where you have a few psychotic coaches who want to be the winningest coach in go games.
Basketball is supposed to un competitive up to U11 (except everyone has a U12 B team made up of 10 year olds.
Soccer is the full of physco coaches who think they will get half their team to the premier league if they win all their U9 matches 14 -0.
The success of rugby is that kids who play minis always remember it as fun and the result didnt matter. They get a bit of GAA/LGFA/Soccer crazy competitive shit at U13/14 and throw their hat at it and go back to rugby- where, event though its competitive, there is still that respect for your opponent.
Basketball is the best of them at the minute as they guarantee minutes for all, and restrict coaching practices that skip the fundamentals of the game - i.e banning zone defence
The GAA has a lot to learn from Rugby (on respect and non competitive games) and from Basketball (on restrictive rules and game time restrictions). the FAI have a great set of rules on how to play 4-3-3, playing time, positional switches etc - but everyone ignore it and most coaches haven't even heard of the FAI Player Development Plan, never mind read it.
tirawleybaron (Mayo) - Posts: 1688 - 24/02/2026 18:08:08
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Replying To tirawleybaron: "There are as many playing rugby as Hurling - thats the reality now
Its Soccer, Gaelic football & lgfa, rugby, hurling then basketball.
Hurling lads like to call it GAA so as to hide the fact its a minority sport.
In Mayo, you can play Basketball, Rugby or Athletics in winter (although kids athletics seems to be all year round)
then play Gaelic football and soccer in summer, with hurling available in a few spots.
Rugby as risen exponentially in Mayo because of summer soccer - with Rugby now the only outdoor field sport.
The soccer only lads, can play summer soccer in East Mayo and Winter soccer in Sligo.
The biggest problem with keeping kids playing multi sports is flawed coaching philosophies.
I know of U12 Gaelic Coaches who have U12 girls back training in February (without a football) for Go Games in May. With some of the girls are also playing rugby or basketball or Athletics. The coach is promising to "stream" the girls into A&B teams in March - while rugby and Athletics are still going on.
As a general rule, the multi sport girls are better and will either waltz onto the A team when they go back at the expense of girls who are out running around in the pissing rain all February. OR, if the multi sport girls panic, will over train and be injured half the season anyway.
The reason minis rugby (U12), lgfa and Gaelic football have gained so much ground on soccer is that they are supposed to be non competitive up to U12. KIds turn up and have a bit of craic , except in some clubs where you have a few psychotic coaches who want to be the winningest coach in go games.
Basketball is supposed to un competitive up to U11 (except everyone has a U12 B team made up of 10 year olds.
Soccer is the full of physco coaches who think they will get half their team to the premier league if they win all their U9 matches 14 -0.
The success of rugby is that kids who play minis always remember it as fun and the result didnt matter. They get a bit of GAA/LGFA/Soccer crazy competitive shit at U13/14 and throw their hat at it and go back to rugby- where, event though its competitive, there is still that respect for your opponent.
Basketball is the best of them at the minute as they guarantee minutes for all, and restrict coaching practices that skip the fundamentals of the game - i.e banning zone defence
The GAA has a lot to learn from Rugby (on respect and non competitive games) and from Basketball (on restrictive rules and game time restrictions). the FAI have a great set of rules on how to play 4-3-3, playing time, positional switches etc - but everyone ignore it and most coaches haven't even heard of the FAI Player Development Plan, never mind read it." That's lovely but we are not talking about mini rugby. Easy to get numbers at that age . And Athletics you left out. Way ahead of rugby.
And you are making up stuff to try and prove your point. I am a GAA coach first and foremost but coach my daughters U8 and U10 team. And all the clubs we interact with are amazing and dont care about results it's about inclusion and keeping them coming back.
Also bizarre point for reasoning why GAA and LGFA are more popular than soccer. They always have been. There's more LGFA teams available than soccer. That's just a numbers game and ladies soccer falls off a cliff mid teens for the most part and parents know that.
TheFlaker (Mayo) - Posts: 8775 - 24/02/2026 21:40:08
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Replying To tirawleybaron: "There are as many playing rugby as Hurling - thats the reality now
Its Soccer, Gaelic football & lgfa, rugby, hurling then basketball.
Hurling lads like to call it GAA so as to hide the fact its a minority sport.
In Mayo, you can play Basketball, Rugby or Athletics in winter (although kids athletics seems to be all year round)
then play Gaelic football and soccer in summer, with hurling available in a few spots.
Rugby as risen exponentially in Mayo because of summer soccer - with Rugby now the only outdoor field sport.
The soccer only lads, can play summer soccer in East Mayo and Winter soccer in Sligo.
The biggest problem with keeping kids playing multi sports is flawed coaching philosophies.
I know of U12 Gaelic Coaches who have U12 girls back training in February (without a football) for Go Games in May. With some of the girls are also playing rugby or basketball or Athletics. The coach is promising to "stream" the girls into A&B teams in March - while rugby and Athletics are still going on.
As a general rule, the multi sport girls are better and will either waltz onto the A team when they go back at the expense of girls who are out running around in the pissing rain all February. OR, if the multi sport girls panic, will over train and be injured half the season anyway.
The reason minis rugby (U12), lgfa and Gaelic football have gained so much ground on soccer is that they are supposed to be non competitive up to U12. KIds turn up and have a bit of craic , except in some clubs where you have a few psychotic coaches who want to be the winningest coach in go games.
Basketball is supposed to un competitive up to U11 (except everyone has a U12 B team made up of 10 year olds.
Soccer is the full of physco coaches who think they will get half their team to the premier league if they win all their U9 matches 14 -0.
The success of rugby is that kids who play minis always remember it as fun and the result didnt matter. They get a bit of GAA/LGFA/Soccer crazy competitive shit at U13/14 and throw their hat at it and go back to rugby- where, event though its competitive, there is still that respect for your opponent.
Basketball is the best of them at the minute as they guarantee minutes for all, and restrict coaching practices that skip the fundamentals of the game - i.e banning zone defence
The GAA has a lot to learn from Rugby (on respect and non competitive games) and from Basketball (on restrictive rules and game time restrictions). the FAI have a great set of rules on how to play 4-3-3, playing time, positional switches etc - but everyone ignore it and most coaches haven't even heard of the FAI Player Development Plan, never mind read it." I dont know about as many playing Rugby as playing hurling. I dont think that's the case in munster or Leinster( even if half the province geographically dont hurl) and i dont think its the case in Galway. It probably is the case in the rest of connacht alright and probably ulster too.
I agree with you on gaa learning from rugby on respect although the 50m penalty in GF has done a lot to combat that. I dont know how it would work in hurling as a 20m free is a penalty. Id love to see it in soccer. A direct free kick from the top of the D for dissent would revolutionise the game almost as much as the back pass rule did way back in the 90s. Soccer did score an own goal in rural Ireland with summer soccer. It might work in Dublin but in rural Ireland they are losing big time to gaa.
Tadhg2020 (Limerick) - Posts: 38 - 24/02/2026 22:09:16
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Replying To TheFlaker: "That's lovely but we are not talking about mini rugby. Easy to get numbers at that age . And Athletics you left out. Way ahead of rugby.
And you are making up stuff to try and prove your point. I am a GAA coach first and foremost but coach my daughters U8 and U10 team. And all the clubs we interact with are amazing and dont care about results it's about inclusion and keeping them coming back.
Also bizarre point for reasoning why GAA and LGFA are more popular than soccer. They always have been. There's more LGFA teams available than soccer. That's just a numbers game and ladies soccer falls off a cliff mid teens for the most part and parents know that." I meant to that's soccer with my kids.
TheFlaker (Mayo) - Posts: 8775 - 25/02/2026 09:53:39
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Replying To Tadhg2020: "I dont know about as many playing Rugby as playing hurling. I dont think that's the case in munster or Leinster( even if half the province geographically dont hurl) and i dont think its the case in Galway. It probably is the case in the rest of connacht alright and probably ulster too.
I agree with you on gaa learning from rugby on respect although the 50m penalty in GF has done a lot to combat that. I dont know how it would work in hurling as a 20m free is a penalty. Id love to see it in soccer. A direct free kick from the top of the D for dissent would revolutionise the game almost as much as the back pass rule did way back in the 90s. Soccer did score an own goal in rural Ireland with summer soccer. It might work in Dublin but in rural Ireland they are losing big time to gaa." I think most of us have fairly limited views of this.
Most people in Wexford are playing or have played hurling, football and soccer. Basically everyone plays rackard league hurling at least.
Rugby is growing but still small.
The Wexford league elected not to switch to summer soccer. They knew they'd be decimated.
Doylerwex (Wexford) - Posts: 4281 - 25/02/2026 10:21:54
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