After the drama and heroics witnessed in Luxembourg, the Belgians were bullish about their chances of claiming their first Belgian title, at the fifth attempt. They welcomed backed the self styled Galacticos; captain Kevin Keary and Eoin Sheanon came back from the campaign trail, Michael Hough from his Tennessee barn dance and they were joined by Dominic King. Their return was supplemented by the debut of Daire Cotter, an All-Ireland Minor winner with Cork, way back in 1995. For the first time all season, hurling guru Martin Crowley was going to be forced to make some tough selection decisions.
There is little value in going into the gritty details of each group game as they all finished with Belgian winning by a significant margin. Lux were first to fall in a game with few highlights. Eoghan Kelly's points from wing back being the main ones. Den Haag, the only side who could realistically stop Belgian's march to European honours, were next up. Again Belgian opened up, with Daire Cotter contributing some fine scores. Pearce made a few surging runs from midfield and Willie picked out his teammates well from puckouts. Main other highlights were Eoin's airball when through on goal and his shot from 5 yards straight at the goalkeeper. We picked up a few injuries however, most notably to Conor Aylward who dislocated a thumb.
The Paris game saw Martin make some radical changes placing the docile Michael Hough and sluggish Eoin Sheanon in the half back line. Fortunately their loose play was not exposed but still, we led only by 0-2 to 0-1 at half-time. A few more second half changes did the trick and we ran out comfortable winners. One moment for the highlight reel came from Muirits who scored a splendid point on the run. The long puck competition took place afterwards and was dominated by men from the Rebel County. Daire, Aidan Harte and myself took the 1-2-3.
A little bit of complacency crept in prior to the final against Den Haag. Everyone was aware of the danger but sometimes it’s hard to counter. Den Haag went about their business early and with purpose. They lead 1-2 to 0-1 after a controversial goal (looked to be in the square). However, Belgium did enough to lead at half-time 1-5 to 1-3. Martin spoke fairly directly at the break and specifically asked Dominic to raise it the couple of extra gears we knew he had. He duly obliged, knocking over some splendid points. Hough benefited from a deft Daire touch to goal and it was curtains for Den Haag as we ran out comfortable winners.
Whilst not hard to do, no-one has actually done the maths to see where the table stands. However, considering your best four results count, and we have 3 wins in the back, it seems impossible that Belgium can be denied their first European Championship in their fifth year of business. Last year, we finished second to a top quality Lux side and to go a step further this year is great for the club. When you looked at the quality of the bench on Saturday, you can see good hurlers chomping at the bit. Our resources were tested to the limit in Lux and we came through so the campaign has not been without its close moments. Obviously winning our own tournament was a nice first too. Last year, Lux beat us in an epic game by a solitary point and the previous year, Den Haag did a similar job on us.
The organisation of the tournament went very well. We held it on two lovely pitches i.e. they had grass, out in Leuven. Malachy, an Antrim man and head of the Irish Institute there, was a great help in getting the pitches. The day went off pretty smoothly despite finishing two or three hours later than expected. As always a few injuries were picked up along the way and a couple of hospital visits were made. We wish Conor, our teak tough defender with a penchant for hitting monstrous points from downtown, a speedy recovery. Also to Dave Conlon of Paris who sustained a serious shoulder injury and underwent a painful procedure in hospital that night to put it back in place. He's one of the most talented hurlers on the scene so will be missed greatly by Paris.
Next stop on the journey around Europe is Zurich on July 12. This week we need to get ourselves booked up to travel, be it by car, plane or train. It’s the worst away trip because of the distance involved. Flying is virtually out of the question because of the cost and car/train is a hell of a spin. Still, we must travel and we will try and make it 4/4. Our goal for the year will now be to win all five tournaments and to use the coming months, where we can train a bit more freely, to develop other hurlers for next year. Hopefully that will culminate in us fielding two teams in Den Haag in mid-September.
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