Fulfilment

I firmly believe that any man's finest hour, the greatest fulfilment of all that he holds dear, is the moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle-victorious.
Vince Lombardi

Where to start? How to be brief? Very difficult. In the end we travelled with two teams, having left some willing lads back at base. The A team had a fresh look to it with the likes of Pearce, The Fridge and Shane Ryan being drafted in whilst the B team were reinforced with regular A stalwarts like Colin Byrne, Kevin Keary and Enda Rice, along with a host of others auditioning for a promotion.

Eoin Sheanon put his hand up to take the line for the B team for the day and felt his experience could guide them successfully through the day. Up first was a derby against the A team and it didn’t go well. As you will read later, the B’s are better than they performed in that opening game and it’s to their credit that the heads didn’t drop after defeat.

They regrouped quickly to play Lux B/Liberty Lads in the make or break game. Win and they were most likely through to the semi. Lose and they would be clutching at straws for a moral victory. The Liberty Lads portion of the opposition were seasoned and capable but the Belgians game plan was simple and effective.

A true maverick was born down there on Saturday. 37 year old Liam Kelly was the one dimensional game plan and he was to the B’s what Aisake was to the Cork Hurlers a couple of weeks ago. Give him a ball, any ball, and he seemed to gets those big paws on it. It rained down on him all day long.

It was his ability to create havoc that led to Ollie’s decisive goal which allowed a deserved victory, backed up by some serious defensive resistance. The final act summed it up as a long free into the opposition target man was snuffed out by Shane Griffen. It wasn’t a glamorous tackle, more one where he said; if I’m not getting the ball then neither are you.

On to the semi-final they marched for the first time. There waiting was Den Hague. The lads may have caved after conceding a goal so early but with a strong core of steady heads they fought on. They were rewarded with a flurry of points but in the end, the strength of Den Hague shone true. Still the performance was a marked improved from the opening defeat against Belgian A and was a true reflection of their standard.

That left them with a 3rd/4th place playoff against Lux A. I have few details as we were preparing for the final but a 0-4 to 0-2 victory was a fantastic result. I know this because the A team were haunted to beat them in the semi-final. If ever a team has demonstrated persistence and perseverance and fantastic attitude then it has been our B team. They sail in rough waters in Benelux but they raised their mast high on Saturday and got their reward. 3rd place in Benelux is no mean feat.

Back to the A team and they negotiated the group without too much stress. The time was rotated constantly and everyone was kept fresh. However, we had flagged a couple of concerns prior to the semi against Lux A. One was David Collins. He was in injury trouble after the first game and wasn’t fit to start. We also knew Lux would be absolutely bulling. Winners of their home tournament for something like eight years in a row, we expected an almighty onslaught.

Shane Ryan gave us the perfect start with a well taken goal but Lux just kept hammering away at us. They swarmed every possession and we couldn’t get the ball away. When we attacked, we field hard done by as the tackling on Eoin was questionable to say the least. We were getting no change out of the decisions.

Pearce was unlucky to be pulled off but we needed James O’Dowd’s placed ball skills and he quickly tacked on 1-1 before half-time. We couldn’t shake the, through the second half until Collins made one last gallop from the bench to kick the all important score. We survived and went through to the final.

We’ve a lot of smart players in the panel and we put a positive spin on the game. We’d survived a massive battle and got a huge wake-up call. Den Hague surely wouldn’t have any more to throw at us.

Because of the turnover of players and the lack of regularity with which a lot of guys can train, we don’t spend too much time on tactics. However, the conditioned games we play focus on movement off the ball, changing direction of play etc. Through that you hope guys will get the right habits in their game.

There were a couple of times on Saturday were guys got the heads up and switch the play with a cross field ball and we got scores out of it. It’s great when it happens. For fear of releasing the rest of our tactics to the European G.A.A. world, I won’t elaborate here. However, it’s fair to say that Olof, Diarmuid, Johnny and Shane were all give specific jobs at some point on Saturday and their application to them was excellent.

I expected another tough tussle against Den Hague in the final. We changed the team slightly. The Fridge, out only ever present on the day, retained his wing-back spot alongside James O’Dowd who was given an unusually withdrawn role. Crusher and Burkee were like the might midgets inside in the full-back line.

I lined up midfield alongside Johnny. It may seem a bizarre call but the 11-a-side game allows for it as it’s harder to isolate the small man on the big man. Olof and Diarmuid took the half-forward spots with Jim and Eoin inside. I remember little of the detail of the final except that we conceded a very bad goal early on. By half-time we had recovered to lead by a point. On into the second half and we were full of energy. James O’Dowd was dying to get forward and our backs were rugged and unforgiving.

Sheanon’s jersey was held virtually the entire game and that reduced our attacking prowess but the rest of us had to stand-up. Myself and Johnny addes to a Jim point but we never managed to put clear daylight between us. Enda commented after that as the game went on it was clear there would only be one winner. I didn’t think it at the time but the score line of 0-7 to 1-2 backed up his conviction. We had all the running and on the day all the football.

As Eoin was doubling as manager for the B’s, I took over the captaincy for the day on his suggestion. It was my first time in a Belgian G.A.A. jersey and it was a great honour to lift the splendid Luxembourg cup on behalf of both our panels. On a given tournament day we are two panels but every other day of the year we train, socialise and look out for each other as one.

Both teams were successful on Saturday because of the heated battles which are acted out every night at training lately. No quarter given or asked. Poor Colin broke his nose last week and Collins told the rest to get on with it. We drive each other on all the time and I feel as part of the B team success as those lads who lined out for them on Saturday should feel of the A teams.

Benelux has been claimed. The first stage of the season complete. We’ll have a week off this week and then start our plotting for the Pan-Euros.