Chasing Daylight

The closing paragraph of my last entry said that we were capable of ending the season on a high. It needed Martin to get the blend right and the players to perform. Both happened and we claimed a third win in a row in our home tournament.

It was a day that didn’t belong to summer. It was damp, with sporadic rain showers and soft underfoot conditions. Den Hague and Zurich opened proceedings with a physically contested draw. I watched from a distance and was impressed with the strength of the panels they brought and the purpose with which they approached each exchange.

We started off against Lux. They’re struggling at the moment but to their credit, they put a panel together and made the journey. We all know how difficult it is when you are blending only a few experienced hurlers into a largely inexperienced group. We won the game well with the highlight coming from Michael Hough who showed agility you would not associate him with to swivel and connect first time to raise a green flag.

Next up was The Hague; a team playing for the Championship. We were relaxed before the game, far too relaxed for Martin’s liking and he gave us a fairly animated dressing down. They hit us early with a few frees but we tipped away with scores from Hough and Shane. Still, we trailed by a point at the interval.

We struck back immediately after the break with a goal. It’s difficult to know who did what when you are in goal at the other end and lads have helmets on. I think it was a ground strike by Crusher. Things heated up as the stakes rose for our opponents. Colm MacEoin came into his own then. Having had a couple of exchanges with him in training I know he has bite and the hurling definitely brought it out of him. His fire lit the fuse of those around him and helped by another goal, we won by six or seven points. We showed a relentlessness that had been absent all year, especially around the middle where Bull and Shane were making some big tackles.

Our defence was going well. We were limiting our opponents to points from distance even if a few too many of them were coming from frees. Willie and Keary were keeping things tight in front of me. The only concern point was the communication and this time I was one of the guilty parties. There were a couple of moments of indecision between myself and Willie. A heavy wet ball descending from the sky through traffic can do that to fellas!

Those two wins meant we had qualified for the final. Now, The Hague needed us to beat Zurich in our last group game to qualify for the final and thus keep their hopes of an overall Championship win alive. If it was a run of the mill tournament we’d have emptied the bench and rested lads. We respect what each team puts into the whole thing though and did what we thought was the right thing and went with a strong team.

Zurich’s greater need was giving them an edge on the scoreboard but we kept in touch. Until Keary’s red mist moment. A ball broke and he did a fair job of trying to break his hurley off one of their lads. Kev knew straight away that he had done wrong. Anay wasn’t impressed either and she literally hauled him off the pitch. It made our task all the harder. We went down by a couple of points in the end.

I wasn’t worried about the prospect of facing them again in the final. We made some mistakes in that game, played a lot of the second half with ten men and as much as we wanted to win in our heads, a guy will never put his body on the line in the same way when the goal is already achieved.

Martin had a few decisions to make. The void left by Keary being the first one. He brought in the old warhorse Fergal Mythen. There were problems further up the field though. We got no change out of their full back line so he brought Daire Cott to half forward and put the robust Aonghus in full to fight that battle.

It felt like they were well over us in the first half and I was surprised to be level at 0-5 to 0-5 at half-time. Like against The Hague, we goaled again early in the second half. I think it was Crusher. We were coming strongly and added another goal when Aonghus laid off brilliantly to Daire Cott to fire to the net.

Zurich had already been crowned Euro Champions by virtue of getting to the final but we know from our experience in the football in 2008, how important it is to finish the job. They came again but found player of the tournament Darragh Cotter to be an immovable object in defence.

Behind him Fergal Mythen was winning some crucial ball. He’s some man. We still don’t know his age but rumours were rife on Saturday that he was in Hayes’ Hotel on that faithful day. If he was, he showed all that experience to close the game out. When you’re in goal he’s a great man to have in front of you. The kind of minder that a keeper will always appreciate. I’m sure it was an especially satisfying day for him, with his wife and army of kids watching on from the sideline.

It’s hard to explain to people at home how winning one tournament can be so satisfying. This was especially so as if we ended the season empty handed it would have been a massive blow to hurling in the club. Instead, we beat the two top teams in this year’s championship and proved to ourselves that when we have most of our players, we can compete. And we managed on Saturday without Eoin Sheanon. He has been by far the most prolific forward in the competition for the last few years. The victory was the daylight at the end of the tunnel which we wondered if we would see this year.

I’m glad I copped on last week and realised I had to play. The outing in goal went largely to plan except for the concession of a goal in the final. It was from a free which started on the wing and due to persistent moaning, was brought in front of the posts. It was a very savable shot but we let it slip in. I reckon we’d have been the first team to keep a clean sheet over the course of a tournament day if we had kept it out. Disappointing.

That miserly stat wasn’t down to my brilliance. Our defence did very well and I had no clean shot to deal with, just the usual dirty slippery balls you get. Fortunately the eye was in and the confidence grew as the day progressed. I was happy with the puck outs too and reckon we won a higher % of our own puck outs than any other team. That was partly down to me and partly down to the lads who put their hand up and made the right moves. One other part that could have been sharpened was clearances in open play. I may have had options on shorter on a few occasions but opted to go long. That just comes with that bit of confidence.

Needless to say, we celebrated with excess in Devs that evening. And it wasn’t just our tournament win but also a double from the ladies who not only won the tournament but also the overall championship. Camogie has had the biggest struggle in Europe. Standards were very low in recent years but this year it was turned on its head. On the back of 4 wins, the girls were deserving winners but Paris had a quality team too. The lack of numbers on a long day went against them on more than one occasion though.

Our ladies won well in the final with Catriona putting in another massive performance at the back. The highlight was the combo of forward duo Niamh and Irene. They had an almost telepathic understanding and linked up for some fantastic scores to lead their team home.

Despite many cups being handed out and speeches galore, the highlight of everyone’s night was when Joe McDonagh got up and sang The West’s Awake. It’s not easy to quieten a pub load of hurlers that late in the night but you could hear a penny drop. He’s some man and a great supporter of European G.A.A.

There was more daylight as we vacated the premises in the early hours of the morning. Amazing how one day can change the story of a season and send you to the long winter with renewed hope.