Clinched, a new sports app, has been launched by former Leinster and Ireland rugby star Seán O’Brien and former Kildare GAA great, Johnny Doyle.
They are both founders of the mobile app that looks to connect clubs and candidates across a myriad of team management, coaching and performance roles.
“All of us at Clinched have been involved with sport at some level, and are still involved in our local clubs and communities, where, as we all know, the club is at the heart of it, regardless of the sport,” said O’Brien who is now a Skills Coach at Leinster Rugby.
“That community can be very small, and for clubs looking to recruit team managers, coaches and athletic performance professionals, it can be very hard to find the right people beyond the traditional club boundaries.”
“Clinched broadens a clubs’ horizons beyond the clubhouse chat and beyond word of mouth connecting clubs with a database of interested candidates and the best part of the process is that it is free to sign-up.”
The Clinched app has been in development for over 18 months and the idea was first brought forward by former Kildare footballer, Padraig Fogarty.
“All of us co-founders are all still heavily involved in sports clubs and have all seen these processes play out over time,” said CEO Brendan Tallon.
“But Padraig went a step further and thought there must be a way of making this more efficient for the club in the first instance, and then, allow them to access a much wider cohort of applicants.”
“Be that a senior club, or intermediate or junior, there are always opportunities to add something extra to an environment and sometimes that just isn’t available within the club itself.”
“There are sites and resources like this for most other industries, but not sport, and we thought there was an opportunity to go and do something about it, which we have done with Clinched.”
While open already for clubs and candidates to sign-up and be registered, Clinched will initially be targeted at candidates and building a database of people looking for management and coaching roles.
There is no fee to sign-up for either a club or a candidate and instead, a fee will only be charged to a club once it decides to access the list of suitable candidates who have expressed interest in their role.
“There is nothing like Clinched out there and we have spent the last year and a half building what we feel is an excellent app to help clubs and candidates equally,” added Johnny Doyle who starred over decades for Kildare GAA and now works as it’s community and development manager.
“In my own experience, the GAA is all about community and who you know, but for any ambitious club, it’s important to realise that there is a broader reach out there and why would you limit yourself to the same pool of people season after season? Also when you think of the time involved, for volunteers usually, to get the research done and to get someone in, there has to be an easier way.”
“Our focus at the start is on GAA and rugby clubs and candidates there, but there is no reason why we can’t build this platform going forward to involve other sports and that is certainly the aim.”
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