Wednesday, October 6, 2021

Update 5th October

 

Blog October 5th.

Boyle U 16 s Convincing County ‘A’ title win.

I have been telling anyone interested in Gaelic football who I talk to in Boyle about a special town team who play pure Gaelic football. The proof of my mission was to be seen on Friday night last, under lights at Kilbride. It was a wintery, cold night but the football played was heart-warming. Their opposition on Friday last was a combination of Michael Glavey’s and Eire Og with a number of top-class players. They had beaten Boyle in the Abbey Park just a few weeks ago. This was in a league game for this year’s under-17 minor Championship. So this 2020 final was expected to be an even affair. However, it did not turn out that way. From ten minutes or so in Boyle began to assert themselves and at halftime, they led by 1.6 to 0.4.

The second half proceeded in a similar fashion and ended with a convincing victory for Boyle 1.13 to 1.7.  The detail of the game is clearly set out in Ronan Flanagan’s report for ‘The Roscommon Herald’, Sports Section page 8.

Ronan nominated Conor Kelly as ‘Man of the Match’ and it was a clear decision amongst many sterling performances. Conor is the son of John Jnr. and grandson of John Kelly Snr. who was an All-Ireland U 21 winner with Roscommon in ’66 and a regular county senior player from then to the mid-seventies. Colm was outstanding in this game displaying all the skills with an energy that was special. I will not go beyond mentioning Colm here as there were so many fine performances throughout the team that it is best to list the team and panellists in total as they all contributed to an outstanding and really enjoyable exhibition of Gaelic football. The skills of foot-passing, gathering and securing possession, understanding and support play, driving at and through opposition attempts at defence, unquenchable energy and pace, great free-taking, in other words all the skills a coach would delight in.

I don’t say this lightly but it’s as good as anything I have seen.

I saw this once before when watching a St. Jar lath’s team win one of their many Hogan Cups in Longford, maybe 30 years ago. The thing I brought from there also was that all was done in silence from the players which was replicated last Friday. Some side-line mentors were probably not on that hymn sheet. 

I left one skill for last. I saw one the finest high-fielding catches I have seen, from young Eden Kerins (grandson of Liam) about 15 minutes into the game.

The team: Sean Caravan/ Joseph Coyle/ Daniel Casey Capt./ Mark Dwyer/ Oran Henry/ Eden Kerins/ Mark Halligan/ Conor Kelly/ Niall O’Donnell/ David Duggan/ Luke McGrath/ Catha McKeon/ Shay Noone/ Gavin O’Connor/ David Flanagan with David Beirne/ Jamie Kennedy/ Nicholas Callan/ Oisin McDermott/ Andrew McGee/ Karl McKeon/ Tommy Walsh.

I congratulate especially their manager Shane Spellman for his contribution to this win. Well done Shane.

Also his acolytes Dessie Mcloughlin/ Kevin O’Connor/ Gerry Emmett and Jim McGrath. There is plenty of knowledge and passion there. It can boil over a little but…

I mention also the significant Boyle support that was in Kilbride on Friday night. Apart from Cathal Feely I did not see many of the Boyle senior team present but I might have missed them. The referee, Kerryman Gerry Carmody, deserves a mention also for his handling of the game.

This same team now face into the business end of this year’s (2021) U 17 Minor Championship. This is at the stage of a semi-final v Clann na Gael this week-end.

 It is hard to switch gear from the above so I’ll post it to Sean as a stand-alone item.

 Maybe I’ll come back with ‘normal stuff’ (!) like

1.     Crazy murders in the U.S. and London.

2.     The wild and crumbling Atlantic Way: Donegal's and Mayo’s mica crisis.

A scheme, which was to be administered by county councils predominately in Donegal and Mayo, would give homeowners up to €275,000 to reinstate their crumbling homes.  Apparently that is not enough. It is slated, as of now, to cost over €3 billion. Taking ‘The National Children’s Hospital’ cost inflation as a yardstick it is just a guess what it might really cost.

Where is that block supplier now? I have heard little of his company.

There are 6,600 houses in Donegal and Mayo crumbling due to the issue and the question is possible; Will it stop there?    

I have not used this term for a while…’unbelievable’.  

3.     A very disturbing issue at Cork University Hospital which defies logic.

4.     An Attorney General doing a decent ‘nixer’ over a year after his appointment as a Government apparatchik.

5.     The Irish army discrimination and ill-treatment of a number of female officers and the frightening trial procedures they have to face.

6.     The spiralling costs of fuels and electricity with threats of outages etc.

7.     The spiralling cost of house building materials.

8.     The cost and lack of availability of housing.

9.     Maybe I should just say the blanket spiralling costs of everything.

10.Online scams.

11. The streets of Dublin.

12.The struggle to adhere with climate change needs.

13.Oh Yes …Covid 19. 

14.(You get a small indulgence if you have read to here! I remember a ‘Plenary’ indulgence. What was the lesser one called? They were to do with Purgatory! It was defined as, “A place where some souls suffer for a time before they went to heaven”. There is a mill in my home village of Castlecoote and one potential poet defined it as;

“A place where some souls suffered for a time… before he went to England”    

 

Thanks for having me”, as contributors like to announce on U. S. News channels.        

 

            

 

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