Showing posts with label Ardoyne. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ardoyne. Show all posts

Tuesday, 6 May 2008

Meath not boxing clever

You have to wonder are they putting something in the water in Meath with six players including top full back Darren Fay sent off in a club championship match at the weekend.
Now the Royals have never been known to be faint hearted but following so hot on the heels of the Parnell Park brawl with Dublin you would have thought that players would have taken a few chill pills.
Not so it seems but at least there is the consolation of heading off to Portugal this week to do a spot of training for the All Ireland.
Have to admit that I am green with envy about the week's training in the sun, our management at home thought that training us in Ardoyne on the nearby Bone Heights was as good as it gets. At the time the Bone Heights were about as exotic as the Golan Heights and almost as heavily militarised.
But then we have never been as good at boxing as any Meath team despite being trained of late by former European boxing champion Darren Corbett.
I wonder if we get in to our next opponents in the league with as much abandon as the Royals would the club foot the bill for a trip overseas?
I'd even get into the row myself!

Sunday, 13 April 2008

Good start to club league

Mid April but at long last our club season got off to start in Antrim today.
Our senior team Ardoyne Kickhams faced McDermott's in our first league game of the year in the county's Division 3.
For us the target for the season is to get out of this league.
The standard in Division 3 is by and large poor but there are always at least four sides in the running to get out of it.
We have come up short in each of the last three seasons we have been there since Division 2 was reorganised and we took the drop.
We have been improving with a number of good minors breaking through into the senior ranks over the last two seasons and we have a good nucleus of players now at their physical peak in their mid to late 20s.
Hope springs eternal at this time of the year and we are convinced that we have a stronger panel than we had this time last year and are physically stronger.
A good start is essential and we have enjoyed a number of good results against teams from Division 2 in pre season 'friendlies', there is no such thing really, and we looked forward to playing the relegated side McDermott's in our first game.
Mac's and ourselves have enjoyed a healthy rivalry over many years but they have suffered badly through not having a youth policy in the club and are in danger of all going over the hill together.
As it turned out we negotiated this first hurdle successfully winning in the end by around 15 points with a good performance by all 19 players who played today.
Our defence was solid and our forwards scored freely.
It was just the start to the season we needed and I hope we can now build on this as there will be much sterner examinations of us through the year.