Winters Cup - Barnhall 17 Lansdowne 6, Parsonstown. 04/04/2009

End of the Road

Cups are funny old things, they have a tendancy to catch you on the hop and creep up on you. When this happens, it is usually gone from you before you have a chance to realise it.... In the words of Al Pacino in Any Given Sunday " thats football guys, thats all it is..."

And so the curtain came down on our aspirations of medals and glory on Saturday against our old friends Barnhall. Having put a spanner in our league campaign in awful conditions before Christmas, they completed the double in the cup in perfect sunny conditions. Perhaps we dont do weather extremes too well....
Having started with two fine penalties, one long range effort from the ever reliable Eoin 'You're nicked fatty!' Gantly, we definately had the beating of this team. And yet there seemed to be a malaise over the team that was worrying, the warm weather seemed to drain the life out of the team. Old habits seemed to be creeping back in, no chatter and a general lack of interest took a long time to shake off, but it was a momentary loss of concentration that lost this game. One slight fault in the defence allowed the outhalf to trot under the posts unharmed, Barnhall did not need to be told twice and raised their game and their belief as they watched ours drift away... nothing ventured, nothing gained. I wish I could convince players how hard it is to win a medal in this crazy sport. They are as rare as hens teeth in brigadoon, they do not come easy. One slip and its gone.

But enough of this! To quote Samuel Beckett " NO MATTER, TRY AGAIN, FAIL AGAIN, FAIL BETTER."

When all is said and done, we are a better team now then we were in September. the challenge is to raise the bar that much again next year. People will move on, move up and move out. All the thank yous have been said, theres still a few things to come: the annual dinner, a friendly or two and LISBOA 09 !!!!
The team next year, one way or another, will be different. Different people, different work ethic, different attitude. Personally im looking forward to it! I hope you are too...

 

written by Philip McGoldrick

match photos taken by Jan Falko

 

Team

1: Gabriel Portier 2: Chris Reid 3: Peter Geoghegan 4: Paul Harvey 5: Robert Moore 6: Adam Kavanagh 7: Conor Gahan 8: Nick Jones 9: Matt Allen 10: Oisin O'Cuinneagain 11: Rory Gavin 12: Eoin Gantly 13: Justin Comer 14: Gearoid Carvill 15: Keith Herman (c) Subs: Ed Bruce, Ross Bloomfield, Des Ryan, Daniel O'Brian and Micheal O'Halloran.

 

ó

 

After the match one of the Killer Bees cars was pulled over by the Garda. We were told by the police that the reason for this was due to EXCESS weight in the rear of the car. After the 'said' Killer B exited the vehicle the Garda informed us that now the car was correct and safe to go.

Sucking it in doesn't make you any lighter!