Our senior footballers have, by their dedication and sportsmanship, proven themselves excellent ambassadors for the Greystones community. They also play a very attractive brand of football. On Sunday next the 13th they take on county champions Rathnew in Aughrim at 4.30 pm in the semi-final of the Renault Championship. They are truly worthy of your support.
Nothing beats being there- bí ann gan teip.
The stakes were high in the Renault football championship game between Éire Óg and Blessington in Aughrim on Sunday: a place in the county semi-final was the prize for the winner. As has been seen in many matches of late such a scenario has the potential to cause win-at-all-cost managers to resort to extremely negative tactics which act very much to the detriment of both Gaelic football as a spectacle and of the sportsmanship of player endeavour.
It is to the credit of the mentors on both sides that the attitude which they and their players brought to the game was refreshingly positive – epitomised in the fact that neither side used the sweeper system. As a result spectators were treated to a contest which sparked in its continuity and in which skill was allowed to flourish.
The game burst into life from the off. The ball broke into Éire Óg territory from the throw-in but the ever-reliable Stephen Kelly was on hand to gather it and burst hare-like up the field. In the process he initiated a whirlwind of exchanges (up to 7 players were involved) which terminated, with barely a minute on the clock, in Sam Thompson's sending the ball between the posts. Shortly after that Greystones were further cheered by a point from Karl Manahan. This however proved to be the stimulus for Blessington to show their mettle and they soon had Éire Óg on the back foot. They were 0-4 to 0-3 ahead at the quarter hour mark. Exchanges were very even for the remainder of the half and Blessington seemed destined to carry a one point lead into the break. However a spectacular point from close to the sideline, 35 metres out to the left, had the sides level at 6 points each going in at half-time.
At the interval there was general agreement among the spectators that, in a tit-for-tat low-scoring game as this was, a goal would have a major bearing on the outcome. Less than 5 minutes into the second period this vital goal came Éire Óg's way. After a jinking 10 metre run a single-minded Sammy Thompson delivered a cleverly directed shot to a Blessington net. The westerners fought back and soon had Greystones under all sorts of pressure. On the 43rd minute mark with the score standing at 1-9 to 0-7 Éire Óg fans stared in horror as a venomously driven ball from close in appeared headed for the top of Lorcan Traynor's net. Thankfully fate intervened and the impending disaster dissipated itself with the resounding crack of ball on crossbar.
Darren Hayden supplied the last Éire Óg score with 10 minutes to go to leave us 1-10 to 0-9 in the lead. Between that and the end the Greystones supporters watched with bated breath as point by painful point Blessington closed the gap. The ache of those seemingly interminable last few minutes in which Blessington laid constant siege to the Éire Óg goal was eventually relieved by the balm of the final whistle.
Juvenile Football: For months now so little information about the Juvenile activities within the Club had been filtering through to the Notes that one wondered was it that the mentors had signed up to an omerta or was it that the section had been disbanded. The Notes were therefore delighted to hear from Maurice Prendergast, he of Mayo persuasion, that U-12 football at least is in quite a robust state of health. The Notes are grateful to Maurice for having sent the following report on the U-12's visit to Rathnew.
Despite the absence of a number of the panel, holidays etc. Éire Óg were in a position to field 25 players. Each of these players got significant game-time. As the format of the competition involves the playing of two 11 a-side matches simultaneously on modified pitches the aggregate score of the two games determines the winner.
In the first game Éire Óg took some time to settle and were 1-1 down after 5 minutes. However when they got going Greystones soon wiped out this deficit and ran out reasonably comfortable winners.
Emmet Gulliver and Oisín Shanahan back-boned a solid defence while Rory Barry and Colm Shortt had the better of the exchanges in the middle. Darragh Rush up front found the net on 3 occasions.
The second game was a much tighter affair and it took a scrambled goal by Jack Dye late in the second half to settle the outcome. The team defended excellently. Kevin Booth and Paul Delahunty were the rocks on which many a promising Rathnew attack perished and Conor O'Donovan delighted with his blocking skills and intelligent delivery. A tireless Kevin Prendergast was very accurate from frees and he together with the hard-working Patrick O'Connell accounted for the bulk of Éire Óg's scores. The coaches, understandably pleased with the lads' win, derived most satisfaction from the attitude and the commitment of the players.
Comhbhrón: There was a sense of disbelief and deep sorrow among the members of Éire Óg on hearing of the death in an accident in Portugal of David Keogh. David joined the juvenile hurling section of the club at its inception and played for a number of years thereafter. His mother Breda helped to get the game off the ground at this level. The Coiste extends its sincerest sympathies to all the Keogh family. Ar dheis Dé go raibh anam óg David.
