The 2011 fixtures threw up a slightly unfortunate run of fixtures for May/June. Back to back trips to Holland. Week off. Budapest. Week off. Frankfurt. Week off. Zurich. It's time consuming and expensive.
This weekend’s trip bemuses me slightly. The host club have never entered a team in a hurling competition and I disagree with awarding clubs tournaments in such situations, especially in hurling where there are so few teams and three of the regular attendees are dual clubs in the busy region of Benelux. I'm all for encouraging new teams but they should show their intent by travelling first and then hosting. However, I realise it's a bit of the chicken and the egg.
In any case, we will travel and in fairness Budapest is usually one of the best destinations from a logistics, cost etc point of view (when you have to fly). It's hard to know what level the host club will be. The driving force down there is a local called Adam Balogh. He learned all he knows in Kenmare of all places. Whether the team is littered with locals or if he can call on the plethora of Irish students studying there remains to be seen. If it is the latter then they should be very strong.
Den Hague are also travelling which shows their ambitions. In recent years, they have not journeyed to Zurich so I was surprised to see they are travelling this week. After victory in their home tournament, they clearly smell blood. Zurich will be there too and looking to avenge the final defeat to The Hague at the beginning of May.
Quite where we are I'm not sure. Somewhat unbelievably, our team is only being finalised this week as some guys booked but are not coming, others said they were coming but never booked and more may need to pull out late in the week. It will leave us tight on numbers but we have a solid team travelling.
We had a good initial reaction after the last tournament but numbers have been poor since. Martin has tinkered well with his drills but it's very frustrating when numbers are bad as it affects the quality of the drills and how much you can do.
Despite this, we at least know that the complacency will be gone. However, whether that has been replaced with a suitable desire to win will only be revealed on Saturday.
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