DUBLIN – Glenn Querl, Ireland Women’s Performance and Pathway Coach, will step into the Head Coach role as a development opportunity on the upcoming tour to The Netherlands for a three-match T20 International series next week.
Full-time Head Coach Ed Joyce, who will travel on the tour in an acting Assistant Coach role, said:
“With the increasing fixture list and touring schedule from next year and beyond, we are looking to develop the experience and skill sets in our coaching leadership to ensure we have the capacity to oversee the senior programme and maintain the high standards and expectations we set for ourselves. I have full confidence that Glenn will step up successfully, but believe that you need actual experience to truly test yourself.
“Just like players, coaches need to challenge themselves constantly – that leads to improvement, innovation, and a sense of direction in the role. And when coaches are motivated, it rubs off on players.”
Glenn Querl, 35, took the Ireland Under-19s Women’s squad to the ICC Women’s Under-19 World Cup in January. He has been working within the Irish women’s programme for the last three-and-a-half years, having spent eight years coaching men’s and women’s cricket in the UK. He was additionally head coach of the Scorchers in the Evoke Super Series winning back-to-back 50-over and T20 titles.
On the playing front, Querl played first-class and List-A cricket in Zimbabwe, and appeared in the Zimbabwe Under-19s.
Querl said:
“I was absolutely thrilled and buzzing after the conversation with Ed about this opportunity. It’s a great chance for me to take some more responsibility within the group and I can’t thank Ed and Cricket Ireland enough for giving me this chance to lead the team in the Netherlands tour.
“This opportunity will help me to further develop and grow as a coach. It’s an invaluable chance for me to experience what it is like to coach at the highest level. Having worked with this group of players for a couple of years, I feel very privileged to lead them and I am so excited to continue to watch them grow and shine at international level.”
About the recent series against Australia, he said:
“It was a very exciting series to be involved in. When you get to play against the best in the business it’s a great test. Overall, we didn’t put together enough good moments to put ourselves in winning positions. However, we certainly showed in parts that we can compete at that level – we just have to work on being consistent for longer periods of time during games.
“I have no doubt that we will be able to compete and be successful against the best teams in the world and that the more games we play the better we are going to get.
“The Netherlands in Holland is going to be a very different test away from home. They certainly have some match winners within their squad, but I have no doubt we have more than enough firepower in our squad to go and be successful there. It’s a really important trip to measure the progress we have made with our young cohort of players. It offers us a great opportunity to work on player combinations with an exciting period of T20 cricket coming up.”
Querl is renowned for incorporating novel training techniques – where does the inspiration for this come from?
“I grew up on a boarding school campus and both my parents were coaches at national level in different sports, so I have had an interest in coaching from a young age. I worked as a PE teacher and had to constantly come up with novel ways to reach all the students. The same goes for coaching, players learn in different ways and it’s really important to keep providing new techniques and different ways to achieve certain skills.
“In recent times, I have been using social media to analyse other coaches approaches to come up with ideas that we can adapt to suit our players. I have also learned a lot from working closely with Ed for the past few years, especially on the batting front.”
Coaches often draw from their own experiences when working with players – what were some of Querl’s most memorable experiences on the field of play?
“The most memorable day on the field for me would have to be the first time I played at Lord’s – it was an incredible occasion inside an incredible venue. In terms of an particular performance, that was when I scored 188 not out for the Matabeleland Tuskers as a nightwatchman in a Logan Cup match.”
The tour will involve three T20 Internationals on 14, 16, and 17 August at the VRA Amstelveen ground.
SQUAD
Laura Delany (capt), Ava Canning, Georgina Dempsey, Amy Hunter, Shauna Kavanagh, Arlene Kelly, Gaby Lewis, Louise Little, Jane Maguire, Aimee Maguire, Cara Murray, Orla Prendergast, Freya Sargent, Rebecca Stokell.
FIXTURE SCHEDULE
14 August: Ireland Women v Netherlands Women – 1st T20I (VRA; starts 2pm local time)
16 August: Ireland Women v Netherlands Women – 2nd T20I (VRA; starts 2pm local time)
17 August: Ireland Women v Netherlands Women – 3rd T20I (VRA; starts 2pm local time)