Rugby Development Officer (RDO) Spotlight – Simon O’Malley

Simon O’Malley is the County Mayo Rugby Development Officer in Connacht Rugby. In this role, Simon works closely with Mayo County Council and Mayo Sports Partnership – a strategic partnership between the two organisations which allows for increased funding for grassroots rugby in the county. In this role, Simon focuses on a number of key pillars of rugby participation, including working directly with National & Secondary Schools, Women in Rugby, Diverse communities, people with a disability and adult rugby.

Name and Role: Simon O’Malley, Rugby Development Officer (Co. Mayo)

How long have you been in the role? This will be my 4^th year as an RDO.

What area of Connacht do you work with (club/schools)? The clubs I work with are Ballina RFC, Ballinrobe RFC, Ballyhaunis RFC, Castlebar RFC, Claremorris RFC and Westport RFC along with a number of schools such as St. Louis in Kiltimagh, St. Gerald’s in Castlebar, Rice College in Westport and Tourmakeady NS to say a few.

What does a week look like for you in the Summer and then in season? So a week for me in the Summer is basically covering the HelloFresh summer camps with Paddy Madden and helping the [venue] managers and Paddy on a daily basis be it in Mayo or Galway. This past Summer, I was on the road every week helping out Paddy with various camps. In the season, I tend to split up the week with covering the different pillars of the game. So, on Monday and Tuesday I’ll look at doing work in National Schools that have never had rugby in them before in different parts of Mayo be it up in Belmullet or East Mayo. The general consensus of National Schools is that I go to areas where there is no rugby club, so they’ve never had an RDO or CRDO come in delivering sessions to them. The idea behind that is that I’d hold a blitz in that area with all the local schools attending from a participation point of view. Then, I’d look at doing inclusion sessions with either St. Anthony’s, St. Dymphna’s, Newport NS or Knockrooskey NS back in Westport. Then I’ll help JP Walsh with the Regional Development Squad during the week and I’ll look at trying to get a session in with an Adult or Secondary School team, be it Boys or Girls.

Favourite Moment or Event? Definitely rugby on The Mall before the Connacht vs Munster game in Castlebar. It brought great excitement to the game in McHale Park and was a very successful day with a huge number of pupils taking part in tag rugby on The Mall with great support from the staff and also Castlebar RFC committee members. We had RTE down to video and interview certain people who were there.

What do you love about being an RDO? I suppose travelling around Mayo, getting to meet new people and also working with other RDOs in the province and other departments like Coach Development. Seeing results of hard work like numbers in the club and getting inclusion rugby up and running in Castlebar and hopefully Ballina soon.

Why are RDOs important? RDOs are important because they’re another source of connectivity to Connacht Rugby for clubs/schools and they are a good point of contact for stakeholders and coaches throughout the province. It’s good that all the RDOs work well together – when any of us are doing a project, everyone weighs in behind and gets involved.

• participation