Éire Óg Greystones
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Weekly Notes - 12th March 2008

U-12 Hurling

The u-12 hurlers must be somewhat aggrieved at the fact that their labours over the winter in the Tom Ryan (sponsored by St. Pats) indoor hurling tournament in Arklow have gone largely unheralded and unnoticed. Hopefully this week’s account of their passage to the penultimate stage of last Saturday week’s Plate blitz will go a long way to dispelling any sense of grievance they may harbour. Their first opponents were Kilcoole. This game, a displaced local derby, lacked nothing of the piquancy which is generally present in encounters between close neighbours and was arguably the most exciting and intense of the day. Mark Delahunt made some spectacular saves while his brother James was responsible for Éire Óg’s 3 goals. Dima Clarke defended with gusto and Jordan O’Riordan and Mickey Ryan were outstanding in centre-field.

Next up were Enniskerry who, this time round, proved to be much tougher opponents than they had been earlier on in the tournament. The game ended all square with the equalising score being supplied by Ryan Clancy. His brother Eoin gave a very solid performance in the backs. Victory was decided on the golden goal rule; this goal was supplied by our own Adam Price. So enthralled were spectators by these games that they cheered the players off the pitch after both the matches.

Éire Óg lost the semi-final to Wexford’s Liam Mellows, the ultimate winners, despite the best efforts of Cathal Brooke and captain Ciara Patrick. The team was weakened by the absence of Conor Randles, a faithful member of the panel, who was unfortunately entrance-exam- tied.

Mentors Ronan and Kieran are very proud of their charges and are also very grateful to those parents who ferried players to the games.

Go Games

Eleven members of the Wednesday night’s u-8 academy had their 1st taste of “competitive” football at the Bray Emmets Go-games (details on www.gaa.ie) blitz on Saturday morning. The inverted commas are well merited as the go-games format with its emphasis on fun, participation and sense of achievement is “about as far as one can go” (apologies to Rogers and Hammerstein) in de-emphasising the competitive element without the games becoming an altogether anodyne exercise.

The Éíre Óg mentors were very complimentary of the manner in which Bré had organised the event. Each team played 4 games, our representatives won 2 of theirs. Every one of the Éire Óg players got plenty of game time and one could see by their post-game exhilaration that the blitz had largely delivered on the Go-game philosophy. The parents who attended were highly impressed by the whole occasion.

U-21

Congratulations to Darren Hayden who was a member of the Wicklow u-21 team which defeated last year’s All-Ireland finalists in Laois on Sunday. Who could have envisaged a Wicklow football team defeating Laois by such a margin?

Trip

The Galway trip did not lack its moment of high drama and heroic derring-do. Willie O’Hagan, with a perspicacity deriving from a finely tuned sixth sense, became aware of a robbery in progress. With no thought as to his own safety he confronted the miscreant and reduced him to a state of abject surrender with a barrage of high decibel verbosity.

Sympathy

The club extends its sincerest sympathies to the family of Joe Mulford who died recently. One could say, in colloquial terms, that Joe was more into soccer than Gaelic but that this was without prejudice is evidenced by the fact that his son Martin, a doughty corner-back, was captain of the Greystones Intermediate championship-winning team of 1985. Four of his grandchildren, Shane Mulford, the Molloy brothers Andrew and Joseph, and Conor Cornwall play hurling for the club. At Saturday’s Div 2 game Shane and Andrew were on opposite panels. Joe was a wonderful golfer and played off scratch. He was prominent in the group which set up the artisans’ club and was a leading campaigner in securing the use of Eoin Ryan Park for Orchard United. Leaba i measc na naomh do’n fhear uasal.