Galway camogie team now guided by Kilkenny native

Given Ollie Bergin’s heritage – he is a Kilkenny native – and the fact that he has three young daughters, it was always likely that he would end up walking the line and managing a camogie team at some time or other.

However, when the Kinvara father-of-three was chosen to succeed former Galway senior camogie boss, Tony Ward – after the latter stood down – there were some in local Gaelic games circles who pondered just who this Ollie Bergin was!

It was not that Bergin was alien to the whole GAA scene in Galway. Upon moving to Kinvara in late 2006, he subsequently got involved in the juvenile hurling set-up in the local club before working his way up to the position of senior manager.

“I had been involved with juvenile in Kinvara, including the U16s and minors, and then they spoke to me about working with Kinvara seniors. So, that was my first real venture into all of this and I have been involved with teams since. I was involved with Kinvara for three years – a couple of good ones, one bad one! Then, I got involved with Kinvara camogie last year.”

Indeed, it was during this latter period that conversations began to take place regarding Bergin getting involved with the county camogie set-up at some level someday. However, he never thought it would be sooner rather than later.

“Tony (Ward) obviously resigned and then they (County Board) spoke to me and asked me would I be interested in putting my name forward. I thought about it and thought why not? I put my name forward through the club and then went through the whole interview process.”

By January, Bergin was appointed and he began the procedure of putting his management team in place. First, Galway goalkeeper and All-Star Colm Callanan and former Galway All-Ireland winning U-21 captain Barry Daly came on board on the strength and conditioning side of things.

Then, Joan Poland (Eyrecourt), Francis Larkin (Killimor) and recent addition David Forde (Clarinbridge) were installed to complete a pretty impressive management selection and coaching team.

By all accounts, it is all beginning to come together, particularly in recent weeks, and this has been reflected in their National League victories over Tipperary and Dublin to date. “It is going fairly well to be honest,” acknowledged Bergin.

“We met the players back in early January and the girls were really enthusiastic. I suppose, a new management has given them a bit of fresh impetus and they are putting in a good effort and it is going well so far.”

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.