Picture this: You walk into your local garage and find that instead of a qualified mechanic, someone simply “drove cars for years” and reckons they know enough about engines to fix yours. You’d probably look for another garage. Yet somehow, we’re comfortable allowing coaches with an extensive playing background but no formal coaching education to guide our players’ development. Irish sport has developed an interesting contradiction. We demand excellence from our athletes and invest heavily in their development. Yet we often entrust athlete development to coaches whose qualifications might extend no further than having “played a bit myself” a few years ago. We…

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