Éire Óg Greystones
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Weekly Notes - 4th October 2006

Also, we in Éire Óg should be delighted if you should consider giving your Tesco sport vouchers to the club. These vouchers can be exchanged for sports equipment - footballs, sliotars, camáns, helmets etc. All sorely needed. Vouchers are being collected by Felicity Keane, the juvenile secretary, but they may be given to players or mentors.

Whew! What a week! It had the frenzy of the 1st days of the Christmas sales. First our u-16s faced Bray Emmets in the Championship and were given the proverbial "snowball's chance in hell" of victory. But they surprised everyone, not least Bray, with their commitment and fighting qualities and engaged their opponents in a titanic battle. With 5 minutes to go these much vaunted opponents had a lead of only a point. At this stage an unfortunate collision between two of our players let Bray through for a goal - the finger was out of the dam and a number of Bray scores followed in close succession. An anti-climatic ending to a wonderfully sporting game of pulse-quickening intensity. Our best wishes go to captain, Adam O'Shea who was unable to play due to a shoulder injury.

On Friday night I dropped down to have a look at how the u-8 and u-10 hurling training was going and found, to my surprise, a car park full to overflowing and the pitches a-hum with activity. There must have been in the order of a hundred of our younger fry endeavouring to master the challenging arts of hurling and Gaelic football while, on the other pitch, our u-12s were playing St. Pats in the semi-final of the shield (of this, more anon). Surely an uplifting sight for any Éire Óg follower, particularly when one considers that a few short years ago the prospect for these games in the Greystones area looked very bleak indeed.

Saturday, it was off to Arklow for 2pm to witness our 1point defeat at the hands of Carnew in the Intermediate championship quarter-final (see next week).

Then up to Wicklow for 5.15pm to see our u-14s in action in the final of the county championship - a better outcome. It is indeed a pleasant duty to offer comhgáirdeachas ó chroí (sincere congratulations) to these same u-14s who are the first team in the club's history to win a county championship at this level. The victory came as no real surprise; throughout the season they had shown themselves to be the best team in the county by some distance. Yet, going into the game one could not be sure - there was the niggling fear of complacency. This had been evident in the previous week's play in the semi-final against Rathnew. Forty minutes into that game, the margin of the Éire Óg lead would have been reduced to the minimum but for a wonderful full-length save from Conor Madigan. Thankfully, thereafter, the Éire Óg boys upped the tempo and, in the end, ran out comfortable winners.

But Bray, we knew, would be much tougher opponents and such a relaxed approach would have us in serious trouble. Our thanks go to the management team of Barry O'Reilly, Ronan Sweeney, Bobby Daly and Kevin Keyes for their work with the u-14 panel throughout what was a very busy year. They did a truly wonderful job.

On Sunday our u-14 hurlers entertained a team from Érins Isle in Finglas