31.05.08 – BENELUX Regional – Luxembourg

Well done to everyone involved, it was a great achievement to get to our first final, in only our second tournament. There were a number of highlights, the great comeback to beat Lux A in our first group game, having been 0-7 to 0-1 down at half-time. The game against Liberities turned into a score fest and we must remember they were poor.

Den Haag gave us plenty of motivation in the semi final (not that we needed it!) by poaching one of the best midfielders at the tournament from Liberties and playing him against us. We drove them into the ground and the fact that some of their more prominent players had to come off in the second half was a result of our relentless harrassing and running.

Unfortunately we fell just short in the final. 0-2 to 0-2 at h/t but they hit us with that killer goal in the first minute of the second half. We didn’t lose believe though and the last kick of the game saw us loft a free into their square which could have as easily ended up in the back of the net and we would be celebrating today.

Our football has improved, our aggression was good and our fitness is getting there. Not one Brussels player went down with cramp but many of our opponents did. Had Olof and Keith not got injured (both had to go to hospital yesterday…Keith will be out for a few wks but Olof should be ok) we may have had enough to get over the finishing line.

We improved massively from the Amsterdam tournament and hopefully will continue the trend going into the Maastricht tournament on June 21. We have plenty more to do in the coming weeks so hopefully numbers will continue to be good at training.

Martin, our Hurling trainer, summed it up best when he congratulated us on breaking the Lux & Den Hague bogeys but emphasised the need to drive on from here in the coming weeks, in both hurling and football.

Well done to our Bainisteoir Conan, John O’Donnell and Mairtin. Its great to have lads there to support & help out and it shows there is good spirit in the camp.