At 11.00 am this morning in Kildalkey we played their second hurling team in the League.This match was played so early to allow our lads time to get to Parnell Park to get the Meath v Louth Leinster SFC game which our Finn and grandson Padraigh did for sure.
My long suffering wife Agnes spent a considerable part of our courtship shivering on the sidelines of Parnell at one stage as I trained with the Dublin under 21 team a lifetime ago ,so this is the third generation of my own family to experience this hallowed ground.
Both it and Dublin have greatly improved since then needless to say.
Back to Kildalkey where the match was played this morning.
After overnight rain the surface was slippy and a few of our guys didn't have the proper foot gear as more than Kildalkey we were inclined to slither and slide from time to time.
Kildalkey are a specialist hurling club,unlike us who have most of our players bursting themselves to keep football and hurling going and their first touch and interchange of positional places were initially difficult for our guys to cope with but we adapted as we progressed.
TEAM was.
Ivan M Cormack
Aaron Feeney Finn Stephens Davy Stephens
Mickey Dowdall Brendan Wright Davy Mc Cormack
John Moran Conor O Shea
Jordan Martin Lukie Martin Stephen Coogan
Bomber Farrell Dylan Keenan Chris Harrington.
Sub introduced .Alex Walshe.
Pady Melia was the referee and he made some peculiar decisions against both sides.In all fairness his calls were hampered by the notable reluctance of some of our supporters to volunteer for sideline or umpire duties but when the brave few who did step into the breach did so ,matters improved somewhat.Paddy is basically a decent guy doing his best .
This match was competitive throughout and it was only our ability to poach goals at times that kept us in the game and the Kildalkey goalkeeper denied us on a number of occasion's.
They gave us a lesson in staying alert at all times and concentrating all of the time and not letting your immediate opponent drift away and getting easy possession.must be concentrated on in future.
We went in two points up and after a torrid second half when tempers on both sides frayed somewhat we held on for a two point victory on a scoreline of 2-16 to 1-17.But overall it was a clean match without excessive rancour.
Well deserved and hard fought for.
If ever a man made his hurling bones Aaron Feeney did so today.Always a gritty and fearless competitor today he stood out and he had one of those dream days when everything went rigth for him.
His cousin Lukie showed brief flashes of that which he is capable of and one wonders whether guys of his undoubted talent would be better developed and their skills better honed with more Club Games.
Haarrow is coming into his own at long last and the team spirit is good .
Everybody gave it diddy .
Slack marking at times out the field made the jobs of our backs difficult but we just did enough to hold out.
We will have to get it into our noggins that defending starts in our full forward line and that everybody is a defender as well as an attacker.That is the way the game has gone,
This team of brothers and cousins are a tight bunch and a pleasure to watch and support.
Alex Walshe ,still doing his Leaving is a brave guy and his Dublin Family are a most welcome addition to the Parish and despite being unable to train much lately answered the call when he knew we would be in trouble number wise .Opponents pick on him because his diminutive size but he does not back down.He is a clean player and in my opinion got an unfair red today.
I know that this was only Kildalkey's second string but their first can't be much better.
If they are then God help every other team in the Senior Championship.
I was delighted to see that our female cheerleaders and ardent supporters from Baconstown and Trim were present and correct.Lovely ladies both.
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