Jamie Wall is one of the youngest GAA coaches who has had success. He won the Fitzgibbon Cup with Mary Immaculate College in 2016-17 and has also been coaching the Cork U-15 side.
Jamie is a former player himself whose career ended prematurely due to becoming paralysed. He is now in a wheelchair but hasn't let that stop him from continuing to be involved in sport.
An U-21 football finalist with Cork, Jamie had just received his college results in June 2014 when he began experiencing back pain. He didn't think too much of it at first: "I just thought it was muscle spasms and that I'd be okay."
But his pain got worse, and he also had to deal with an infection on his forearm. It was successfully treated with antibiotics but flared up again, and he was hospitalised.
The cause of Jamie's back pain turned out to be an abscess on his spine, which was removed with surgery. The doctors also discovered the infection on his arm was related. He recalls the moment he realised there was a chance he could be permanently paralysed.
"I'd arrived in the hospital paralysed and with this unbearable pain in my back. The last thing I said to the doctor before going under the knife was, 'Will I get better again?' And he said, 'We'll do our best.' I woke up the next morning and thought, I'll get better if I work hard enough."
Unfortunately Jamie didn't get better, and he found it very difficult not being able to return to training, describing it almost as a sense of grief.
It's still a very hard thing to accept. It leaves this big hole and you think, how am I going to fill this?"
Jamie turned to writing about sport, but felt a strong urge to be actively involved in games. That was when he decided to pursue a coaching career.
"I wanted to be back affecting things. I wanted to be written about, having something to do with a result, rather than writing about it."
"I tried playing some wheelchair sports and enjoyed them to an extent, but after a certain amount of time I thought, hurling and football is where I want to be. I have to find a way."
He describes coaching at his former college Mary Immaculate as "probably the most fulfilling thing I've done."
Jamie admits he has good days and bad days.
You wouldn't be human if you didn't have days that it was beyond difficult, that you can't handle it anymore and that it's a struggle to get out of bed. But there's other days that you bounce out of bed because it's match day, or where you get a phone call from a young lad asking for a bit of help."
"When it's all good, you're getting up in the morning because you have a purpose and a drive, and it's something you want to be doing rather than something you have to be doing."
