A recent article about our Drive to 25 in the42.ie

DEVELOP AND RETAIN OUR OWN PLAYERS

We aim to provide the best quality coaching at all levels in the club. We want our players to see their future as playing for our Senior sides after they progress through Youths and Minis. To this end we have developed a Coolmine Playbook which all teams will follow.

From September, all youth teams will have third party coaches ensuring that our non rugby schools players have the same opportunity to develop as their team mates.

We want the rugby schools players to return and play in Coolmine at the same levels as at school. We are strengthening our U20s programme and introducing our Metro U23 team as a stepping stone to our Senior team. We will also assist in the provision of rugby scholarship programmes for male and female Leaving Cert level players.

REALISING OUR POTENTIAL

Coolmine RFC sits in a large and ever growing catchment area.

We need to attract and develop players from everywhere to grow the club to the size it should be.

We have appointed a Retention and Recruitment Officer to work with the local schools and the CCRO to make us the sports club of choice in our area.

ALL IRELAND LEAGUE

We are determined to put the structures and facilities in place to take our club to the AIL.

We are developing a lot of good young players and we need to provide them with the opportunity to play at this level in their HOME club.

Too many of them have had to go elsewhere in the past at U20 level and have never come back.

VISION

All of us in Coolmine are volunteers and give freely of their time to help our fellow club members to play the sport they love.

Coolmine has always had ambition but that was rarely backed up by a strategic rugby plan built around a club wide shared vision. We now have this and our collective challenge is to positively push forward and implement it.

Our “Drive to 25 Plan” is designed as a first step at a frame work to help us all work together for a common outcome.

EXCELLENT FACILITIES

Even though our Ashbrook facility is the envy of most clubs, we are committed to improving it even further to match the ambitions of our players.

We have applied for planning permission for a state of the art gym and fitness centre to be built beside the Astro pitches. We have agreed to take over the maintenance of the pitches at ETNS for our Minis and younger youth teams.

St. Catherine’s Park has been fully drained and will be used again for matches and training. We have secured the use of additional space beside the back pitch for training.

We will also have use of a top class 4G pitch for midweek training for the Senior teams.