Éire Óg Greystones
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Weekly Notes - 27th July 2005

A shadow has been cast over the club by the news of the death, on Friday night in a car accident, of Francis Mitchell. Francis was a nephew of Des Mitchell, a President of our club, and of Peter O’Neill, a former Chairman. He was also a close friend of Daniel English who, as a mark of respect, did not make himself available for selection for Saturday’s match. We in Éire Óg extend our sincere sympathy to the Mitchell and O’Neill families on their tragic loss. I bParrathas na nGrás go raibh sé.

One might liken the position to date of the Junior Bs to that of " the flower born to blush unseen and waste its sweetness on the desert air". For, as manager Philip Smullen brought forcibly – no better man! – to our attention recently, here is a team which has notched up 6 victories on the trot in the League and for which there has not been even a whisper of acknowledgement anywhere. Now with their momentous – maybe not in the bigger picture but definitely in the club's history – victory over AGB in the 1st round of the championship, they have insinuated themselves to the forefront of the club’s consciousness and have surely earned a place in this space of record. The Éire Óg win was essentially a triumph of youthful élan over experience and physique for this is quite a young team with a number of minors in its ranks – its eminence grise is John Wynne (you’d never guess, one must get the name of the dye). At the quarter hour stage Éire Óg were 1-3 to 0-2 ahead thanks to a well-taken Paddy Taylor goal. During the 2nd quarter the stronger AGB players started to assert themselves at centrefield and more quality ball was finding its way to their accurate forwards and our advantage on the scoreboard was shrinking menacingly. Early in the 2nd half with our lead at 2 points and falling, it was hard not to be sceptical about a Newtown official’s myth-based prediction "Éire Óg will win, they have the scoring goals in the 2nd half". Such imagined advantages became redundant at this point. The team upped its performance – the defence tightened up and staunched the flow of ball to the goal and the forwards once again found their target. Eddie Delaney – he’ll be pleased to hear that Mick O’Dwyer has expressed an interest – scored some vital points in pressure situations and a stress-relieving goal came from the boot of Jonathan Groome who was first to react when the ball fell to the ground in a confusion of players 15m from the goal. Stephen "Chester" Kelly gave a man of the match performance at centre back. He was ably supported by Aaron McCormack, Billy Norman(goals), Alan Keating and Luke Bradley.

Craig Smullen and Leon Browne were on the County minor team that lost to Carlow in the All-Ireland Minor B hurling final. Well done lads!

Some of our u-12s spent a few enjoyable and instructive days at the D.J. Carey School of Hurling – Robert Martin, Douglas Hempenstall, Nicky Fisher, Cormac Greene, Michael Walsh, Marty Byrne and Leon Hargan.

Best wishes to Áine McCarthy who is recovering from cruciate surgery. Áine has been hors de combat since injuring herself during the ladies blitz weekend in Dún na nGall. We are all looking forward to seeing her between the posts again in the near future.