Tuning Back In

Blog entries have been scarce so far this year. I can't put my finger on why. Maybe it was the move from laptop to ipad which made it less convenient to churn out a post. It could have also been an intentionally more relaxed approach to the first portion (Benelux Championship) of the year. Whatever it was, things are beginning to heat up now.

All year, the focus has been 100% on the Pan-Euros. Too often, we have invested too much in Benelux and had nothing left for the business end. This year we harassed guys less to train and be available for tournaments early on. We had many injuried but all the prognosis' pointed to September returns. It just felt right that our season would start now.

That’s not to say we didn't burst ourselves to try and win in Benelux. When we got onto the pitch we wanted to win every game but found ourselves off the pace, ending as the only team without a tournament victory. The form of others wasn't overly consistent either as no-one seemed to arrive with a full compliment of players on any one day.

In that sense, its hard to judge where we are now. The above win stat would suggest we are off the pace but two months (basically the gap between Benelux and Pan-Euros) is like an eternity in European G.A.A. Our injuries are clearing up and our panel is increasing in size. Training numbers are back up and the intensity is leading to some of our feistiest sessions.

There is a feel good factor in the group at the minute. Guys are beginning to believe that we have assembled two panels to compete in the coming months. If we can wrap up some remaining travel issues, we should travel to Copenhagen with 14/15 guys all capable of contributing equally to the Championship panel.

It remains the unknown though. We were bottom of the pile in Benelux Championship. The individuals won't necessarily make the difference. Our strength is our depth and we must use it. That means guys will need to buying into doing particular jobs and understand that it is not the number of minutes they are on the pitch that counts, its the contribution they make when they are on.

Our Shield team faces the biggest adjustment. In Benelux they squared off against Lux and Amsterdam's second teams as well as Dusseldorf who are in the start up phase. In the Pan-Euros, the opposition will be established first teams from clubs. That makes the challenge a significant one.

I like this time of year. The games matter most. Three tournaments in eight weeks. Everything becomes about one thing.

Missing Links In Maastricht

Usual script to explain why we fell short.

1. Bad start i.e. lost first game
2. Missed too many frees
3. Concession of sloppy goals
4. Concession of too many scorable fress

How did we fair in these areas?

We beat Amsterdam in our first game. Paddy kicked 100% of frees kicking off both left and right foot. We conceded one shot on goal in the group games (which was saved). There were frees conceded which could have been prevented but nothing detrimental.

So where did it all go wrong?

1. Our game plan requires a lot of energy, to defend and attack in numbers. Both Championship and Shield panels were wafer thin and we soldiered through most of the day with the bare 11. It wasn't sustainable.

2. Defensive set-up. We tried a different way of going about it. It was quite effective in the first game but was heavily reliant on communication. Bodies tired, voices went quiet and by the time the crucial third group game against Lux came about, we had lost out way.

3. Attacking play. I went to watch Tyrone and Kerry last week and was amazed by the gap between Tyrone's two man full forward line and the rest of their team. They couldn't transfer the ball up the field because of the size of the gap. There was no middle men to move the ball through. We had the same problem on Saturday.

4. Fitness and form. Some of us are off the pace, simple as. I'd very much include myself in that. Small decisions, getting on the ball, nailing the pass. Things were a little bit off.

5. X factor forward. We simply don't have one to bail us out. A'dam's success has been heavily linked to a new forward they got and he has been key to their two tournament wins. Hague had one on Saturday which kept them from being rolled over. Lux were in a similar place to us but their x-factor came from midfield and created a lot of problems. For now, we are a sum of the parts team hence we need to develop a game plan which is kind to the situation. That gets back to point 1. We can be successful playing the way we do, but only with 14 guys at the same level.

With all that said, we missed out on the final on points difference. Amsterdam beat Lux in the final but I definitely fancied us to take them if had got the chance. They had big holes in their team on Saturday and I think we had a better balance. We didn't do enough though and they were the ones who left with the trophy.

We finished 3rd after beating The Hague in a tame enough playoff game and with that, the curtain game down on the Benelux Championship for us.

The timing of the games meant that I did not see any of the Shield games but by all accounts (their accounts) they should have/could have done better. The first game against Amsterdam was one they could have won and a draw against Dusseldorf/Maastricht left them relying on Amsterdam winning their final group game. That didn't happen and the chance to win the inaugural Benelux Shield disappeared.

So that concludes the first part of the season and now we head off for a two week break. Plenty to think about in the coming weeks.

Backs To The Wall

It seems like this has been the same story since the last Benelux Rd of 2011.

In our home tournament a month ago we had over forty players. On Saturday we travel to Maastricht having scrapped two teams of players together – around twenty three players.

The latest blow is the loss of Enda today. With both keepers missing, he was the next in line. Filling the two keeper spots remains our challenge between now and Saturday.

Up to this year, there was no talking to me the week of a tournament. The amount of stress myself and Collie B took on to make sure preparation was perfect was crazy. Two things have changed lately.

We are slowly preparing to step away from the football set-up, at least in training/administration roles. The chasing of players this week was done mainly by the captains, Timmy and Johnny. The training in recent weeks has been led by Cormac and Ross.

Training has been excellent. Our numbers are down but Cormac has showed everyone the level of intensity which we should be training at. Even when he hasn’t been there, we’ve slowly being going up a notch.

Training on Monday night was particularly feisty. Late tackles, stray arms, poking and prodding. Johnny P took a nice shiner away with him. Tonight, Karl headed for a few stitches in his chin. The signs are good.

What we have this year, is a bunch of dogs. The one thing we can be sure of on Saturday is that everyone will back each other up and no-one will be hiding, minding themselves. The atmosphere in the camp is excellent and the core is as close as it has ever been.

However, the biggest question mark that has always hung over us is whether our big players can pull it out when the chips are down. Other teams have won tournaments from that position but too often we haven’t drained every drop of potential out of our guys.

Doing just that is the goal for our two teams on Saturday.

Trip To Tipp

The Huring season concludes in Thurles this weekend with the final round of the European Championship.

This is the second time Euro finals have returned to the mainland (or left the mainland depending on your view). Last year's football competition concluded in Limerick.

I'm still sceptical about who wins out of these moves. Hurling isn't exactly booming in most clubs. The expense and journey time to go to Thurles is something which could be avoided and the players would surely welcome the cost savings. Lux, Holland and Belgium are the most consistent attendees so if you were catering for the majority you would look to a Benelux venue.

Also, like Limerick, Thurles isn't particularly well serviced by flights so it adds more hassle for players. In fairness, the Euro County Board have gone to great efforts to reduce the cost of the weekend, arranging subsidy for trains and also sponsorship for the lunch and evening meal on the tournament day.

The most attractive thing about playing at home for most people is being able to link about with friends and family. It was nice for them to be able to come to Limerick and see what it’s all about. Also, there are a good few non-Irish players playing hurling and they value the opportunity to come and play in Ireland.

The season is coming to an end at a slightly unfortunate time for us as we have recruited one or two new guys and there are a couple more on their way. That's the luck of the draw though. Numbers haven't been huge this year but in the last couple of months especially, training numbers have picked up and the quality of the sessions have naturally followed suit.

I won't be joining the trip, not in protest about it being in Thurles, more out of a need to preserve the body. So far this year, I've managed to play one football tournament outfield and 1.5 hurling ones! The root cause for each missed training and tournament has been hurling. The motions of striking and picking drive everything from my back down crazy.
I had the flights booked and I have no ailment today that would prevent me playing. However, that’s mainly due to having had a five week break from hurling, with only two football sessions in that time. I drew a line under it for the year to try and get something out of the rest of the football season.

One would expect Holland to be strong again but beyond them, the next best could come from anywhere in the field. A strong performance from our lads would secure second place in the overall standings. Whilst no-one would target second at the start of the year, we’d take it now considering the visible gap between Holland and the rest.
Fingers crossed for a successful day.

Shield Shine The Light

Saturday was all about the first game and thus getting the first performance of the day right. Everything in the build to the Benelux 3rd Round in Brussels was focussed on that.

I would not be there to see it but had no shortage of lads lined up for text updates.

Despite a fairly impressive 14hr drinking session at a buddies wedding on the Friday, I managed to wake up in time for the first game (around 08h30 Irish time). The phone was quiet though. Even well after the game was scheduled to finish there was still nothing. Of course, there could have been a delay but my senses were telling me it wasn't good.

Eventually the news of the two point defeat came through. Despondent barely does justice to how I felt. With a bad start, it was hard to see how we could rescue the situation as we had failed to recover on all the previous occasions this year. I was almost definitely done.

Shortly afterwards, news came in of a win for our Shield 'Grey' team, against Amsterdam. This provided some solace. From that point on, we went on a good news streak. The Championship team put The Hague to bed and followed up with a win against Lux, which was effectively a semi-final.

All along, the Shield 'Greys' were motoring towards a final. In the same competition, we had entered a Shield 'Hoops' team. It's not the first time we have entered three teams but it has become more difficult to drum up the numbers in recent times. Still, it was worth the perseverance to get some of the regular trainers more game time. By all accounts the team dug in and certainly didn't just turn up to make up the numbers.

Back in the Shield final, Dusseldorf were testing the 'Greys' resolve. However, led by their Captain Johnny Phelan and debutant Fergal Ellis, they powered through to take the men's football's first trophy of the season.

The closing game of the day for the men would be the Championship final, again against Amsterdam. The updates were more regular at this stage and were looking good. With five minutes remaining we led by four points. Texts started crossing and becoming confusing which suggested a certain amount of panic had set in. What was clear was the gap was closing. Finally, with the last kick of the day, Amsterdam pointed a placed ball from distance to finish off what they will remember and describe as a famous comeback.

The players were gutted by all accounts and I certainly couldn't have been more disappointed even if I was playing. In fact, I still feel as bad today as I did on Saturday. I can never remember us blowing a lead like that.

The lads have recovered more quickly and the talk is all positive now. In fairness, there is very little b1tching in the group and I am probably the one who makes the most cutting of assessments. I hope it has left a scar on the lads that they won't forget. I think it has. Manage the balance between being positive and ruthlessly assessing one’s performance is difficult to do but it needs doing by everybody.

That’s for the coming weeks.
For now, pride of place goes to our Shield team and they are now in with a shot of lifting the overall Benelux Shield in Maastricht at the end of July.

A big pat on the back must go to Ross, Conor Mul, Conor Mescall, Al Rowan and Gav Flynn. All were injured but did a magnificent job of managing all three teams on the day, with the help of their captains of course.

Overall it wasn't a bad day and if we learn from our mistakes and continue to improve then we should be in the shake-up in Maastricht. Our current group doesn't have an 'x-factor' player that some of our opponents have so we need to close the gap in other ways. Whether we can do that or not remains in the players hands. If they train well, listen and learn, then maybe the despondency won't be long disappearing.

Hurlers Show Improvement

I mentioned last week that we were looking to make progress down in Lux at the weekend and we can be reasonably happy with our first final appearance of the year.

It seems the tiny country of Luxembourg is graced with a plethora on tiny little soccer stadiums, all with immaculate playing surfaces. I thought we had visited them all at this stage but yet another venue was sprung on us last weekend.

Wikipedia gives a capacity of 4,830 for FC Avenir Beggen's little stadium but we were pretty sure that tickets for travelling support would not be a problem.

There was hint of sun, a threat of rain and a noticeable breeze throughout the day - not far from ideal conditions for hurling.

We opened against Holland, determined to banish our habit of bad starts. It was a game in which we competed well but showed our naivety by continuously being sucked in to double teams only for the ball to be popped out to the spare man for a score. We lost 1-10 to 1-04 and were left with a little to think about.

Next up was a combined Paris/Zurich team. One one hand, it’s great to see Paris coming back onto the circuit but the demise of Zurich is a little worrying. In the three tournaments to date, they have only fielded a team at their home one. They've gone from European champions to this in a little less than a year. However, it may not be as bleak as it seems and might just be a case of bad timing with injury/holiday/work commitments.

In any case, we controlled the game from start to finish and left with a comfortable win. We were to play Lux in the final game. This effectively became a semi-final as the winners would go onto face Holland in the final. It never felt like we would lose the game but our tendency of hitting all our goal attempts straight at the keeper was becoming a little irritating. Nevertheless, we did enough to progress to the final.

We werefairly tuned in at this stage and ready for what we expected to be a massive challenge. Holland have barely been tested all year and their panel has gotten stronger with each passing tournament. You always think there is one big performance in you and this would need to be ours.

There was great pace to the opening exchanges as we swapped points right up until half time. Disaster struck when they goaled three minutes before the interval. Hieler must have saved three point blank efforts before the ball eventually fell kindly to one of their attackers for a tap in.

Another goal after half-time opened a gap which we lacked the fire power to close. Mid-way through the second half I retired with a groin injury so was forced to watch Holland final march to claim the 2012 European Championship on my backside. However, I did get to see firsthand the lads continue to display a commendable attitude as they went in search of the impossible.

3-10 to 0-08 probably doesn't reflect our effort but it is probably a fair reflection of the gulf in class between the teams. Sometimes you just have to be content with the fact you have done your best.

The day threw up quite a few positives. Hieler's handling in goal was top notch. Darragh showed that when he has something to focus on that he can be a big addition! Crusher displayed the fruits which one can harvest from a dedicated training regime. I'm not sure why he continues to be overlooked in the player of the tournament stakes.
Ryano, after three years of pestering, finally saw the benefit in popping passes out of traffic and instantly looked a better hurler. Tom's pumped fist after his goal expressed his satisfaction at his progress he’s been making.
The road show stops and finishes in Thurles mid-July.

Break in the clouds

Hurling is bouncing back slowly but surely around these parts. Heavy clouds hung over the early season with numbers low and the zip out of virtually every training taken by the rain.

The first tournament up in The Hague was our worst since early 2008. We were barely competitive. I missed out on the Zurich trip but by all accounts the lads came up with at least one sterling performance to lift spirits.

On Saturday, we travel to Luxembourg with a bumper panel. Darragh rejoins on a hiatus from his Uganda stint. Keary is back from suspension and I return after missing the last day along with some other absentees. Add in one or two new lads and the panel is looking healthy.

Keeping hurling going is a real mission and fair play to Martin and Shane for sticking with it. It would be easy to pack it in when you go from continued success to basically rock bottom. Hopefully we can click on Saturday and start climbing the ladder again.

Holland have been the most balanced team to date and deservedly stand on the brink of winning the Championship. The rest of the team's fortunes have fluctuated so it is hard to know what to expect on Saturday. We'd be hoping to be involved at the business end of the day and looking for a few upsets.

Going into a hurling tournament as an underdog sits quite well with me. That we hold such status has probably sunk in more quickly for the hurlers. The footballers on the other hand still hold themselves in higher esteem and can't tap into that 'survival mode' instinct.

I can't wait for it on Saturday as a result. If there is any sport you need to feel a sense of cause then its hurling. The uncompromising nature of the game means you need to be brave and slightly manic in your approach. I'm looking forward to the physical exchanges and the to and fro nature of a tournament day.

Even at the lowest points in Belgium hurling, we've been able to fight our way to credibility. The lads started that in Zurich and we intend to march further forward in Luxembourg.