Club News

19/03/02 Saint Patrick's Day seven-a-side tournament held in the club

The Saint Patrick's Day celebrations got off to a fine start this year in Corrigan Park with a seven-a-side hurling tournament. The tournament witnessed an impressive turn out of the club's hurlers with some 40+ players taking part in the competition. The first match began at around 2pm and the final finished up just in time for the All-Ireland Club Football Championship Final.

Whilst conditions for this time of the year were less than perfect they by no means effected the standard of hurling, with all matches yielding high scores and good play. The winning team, Team A (captained by Ronan Heenan and including Ciaran Cunningham, Conor Gannon, Donal O'Hara, Neil Kelly, Brendan Moss, Peter O'Connor, Harry Connolly, Kevin Mullan and John Mead) were worthy winners finishing the tournament undefeated champions, having won all their matches.

Whilst hotly fancied by their early performances Team C, captained by Brian McFall, only managed to score a single point against Team A in their preliminary round match and then narrowly beat Team D, captained by Locky McCurdy, by a point in their semi-final (with a controversial penalty incident being overlooked by the referee). This trend continued, however, when they met Team A again in the final, with Team A rifling home some 5 goals to win the game with points to spare.

It was good to see that all age groups within the club were represented with under 16 players right up to the more 'senior' players, such as Michael Gannon and Brendan Mackin, taking part (though Brendan was in unusually subdued form on this occasion, failing to find the back of the net once).

Shane Caldwell and Gerard Robinson took care of the refereeing duties with, as ever, great expertise and the proceedings were watched over closely by senior hurling manager Jackie Kelly, who will be looking forward to the coming hurling season.

With the tournament finished the players and spectators headed for a few well-deserved pints and to join in the craic of the Saint Patrick's Day celebrations in the club.

Many thanks to those who took part and to those who helped to organise what was a very successful day.