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46 // Ladies Gaelic Football Association INTERNATIONAL COACH DEVELOPMENT PEIL Summer | Issue No 2 | Volume 14 hat do you imagine when you think about Australia? Koalas, Kangaroos, beautiful beaches and Australian Football League? What about Sydney? Perhaps the Opera house, Summer Bay and Bondi Beach? Recently in the realms of Ladies Gaelic Football, it's been all about Mayo's Cora Staunton's high profile move to play Australian rules football with Greater Western Sydney in the once capital city of Australia. Well there's a lot more to Sydney than meets the eye, something I discovered when I landed there and met the Irish who proudly chose to call the City Of Sails their home. On Saturday January 20th 2018, the Cormac McAnallens GAA club hosted a FUNdamentals Ladies Gaelic Football course in their GAA grounds in Monarch Fields, Ingleburn in Sydney, New South Wales (NSW), Australia. I delivered the course to the ladies and gents from 5 different Sydney based clubs: Cormac McAnallens, Young Ireland's, Michael Cusacks, St Pats and Penrith Gaels. This was the inaugural Ladies Gaelic Football course held in NSWs and in Australia. Cormac McAnallens GAC was founded in 2005 in memory of Cormac McAnallen, who died in his sleep on 2nd of March 2004, aged 24, from an undetected heart condition. Following his tragic passing, a group of LGFA COACH DEVELOPER EILEEN JENNINGS ON TOUR! Cormac McAnallens club host Inaugural Ladies Gaelic Football FUNdamentals Course in Sunny Sydney Sydney Gaels decided a GAA club should be set up to honour his name. Since its inception, Cormac McAnallen's GAC has striven to represent the legacy of Cormac to the utmost, by committing to success and sportsmanship in equal measures. Cormac Mc Anallens club boast about 30 ladies' footballers made up of two Australians and 28 Irish. The recent years they have won the Gosburn tournament in 2017 and the Ladies GF Championship in 2016. Throughout the day the participants enjoyed the "hands-on" classroom and field based activities that are part of the course. A lot of the newly qualified coaches in Sydney are ex-players who had little or no coaching experience so for many this coaching course was the first formal W coaching they had received. A big thank you to Caroline Crilly and Eileen Breen, for organising everything for the day and Gerard Roe for enabling this course to take place. MORE LGFA COACHES IN SHANGHAI On Saturday May 19th 2018, the Shanghai GAA club hosted a FUNdamentals course in their training grounds in Shanghai Community Sports Center (SCSC), Shanghai, China. I delivered the course to 16 coaches from the Shanghai GAA Club and from Sports For All, which is a community sports initiative providing structure sports coaching to Chinese children in Shanghai. The newly qualified coaches were hugely enthusiastic and enjoyed the course and will be involved in the coaching of the adult and youth teams going forward. A big thank you to Shanghai GAA Chairperson, Caitlyn Connolly for enabling this course to take this place.