On Saturday, September 24th a
total of over 100 U10 players took part in a football Blitz in Sam Maguire park
Dunmanway. Although titled ‘Munster Inter-towns Blitz’, Sam Maguires were drawn
at home to play Clyda Rovers (Cork),
Gneeveguille (Kerry) and Na Gael (Kerry) but all 3 teams were unable to make
the journey south. With only 3 days left to organize the blitz a big
appreciation has to be given to many of the West Cork
clubs for attending on such short notice. On the day we had 2 teams from each
of the following clubs - Rosscarbery, Valley Rovers, Newcestown, Sam Maguires
and 1 team from Kilmeen. With a total of 9 teams participating there were 4
eleven aside games running concurrently in each round. There were 4 rounds played
and a total of 16 games giving the players more than an hour of football on the
day.
Both Sam Maguire teams showed off their
footballing skills on a morning of rare fine weather, especially considering
earlier in the morning we had heavy downpours. After a slow start by both teams
they found their rhythm and kicked some fine scores. Their movement and passing
techniques were exemplary at times and the attitude of the players to win the
ball was impressive to say the least. In the top pitch we had a superb
goalkeeper in Jason Daly, with a strong rearguard of Jason O’Sullivan, Jack
Forbes, Aaron O’Donovan and Joseph Collins who tackled and fought for every
ball. Darragh Collins was instrumental at midfield and with Alan Crowley
winning a lot of possession in the forwards the duo had some excellent scores
between them. In the bottom pitch Stephen Daly was at his usual best blocking
everything in the goal mouth. Conor
O’Neill and Cathal Duggan worked their socks off, winning the ball in defense
and finishing off at the other end in attack. Luke Kearney won a lot of ball in
midfield and Conor O’Connell and Cian Hurley showed their athleticism and
footballing throughout. Playing 7 games in total and only forfeiting 2 of them
a great day was had by all the young players and we hope to have more days of
football like this again, in the future.
Teams were as follows:
Jason Daly, Jason O’Sullivan, Jack Forbes,
Aaron O’Donovan, Joseph Collins, Darragh Collins, Alan Crowley, Ryan Twomey,
Kevin Coughlan, Jean-Luc Debarbouille, Billy Crowley, Peter Collins and Daire
O’Donovan.
Conor O’Neill, Conor O’Connell, Luke
Kearney, Cathal Duggan, Cian Hurley, Sean Dullea, Stephen Daly, Daire Hayes,
Daniel McCarthy, Colin Farr, Sean Murphy, Michael Hayden and Darragh Kelly.