Despite all that Storm Hannah could throw at them, Ollie and his band of intrepid volunteers pulled off a magnificent annual Athy RFC blitz.  With teams travelling from the length and breadth of the country, it must have been an anxious early start for the organisers to see what Hannah had done.

Intermittent sunny spells, blocked off by consistent squalls was the measure of the day with the teams having to contend with some pretty nasty horizontal wind blown rain showers.  Despite all this, the plucky teams got to business.

Lansdowne fielded two teams of 9 players each and drew some pretty tough competition against Garda Westmanstown, old Chirstians, North Meath, Cashel, Coolmine, Sundays Well, Connemara, and our Club President – Kieran Mulligans own home club of Waterpark in County Waterford ably coached by his own brother Niall Mulligan.

The games were kept flowing on schedule (to the second) so the boys didn’t have too much waiting around.  With that amount of games to play there’s no room for complacency.

With all the games finished, it was a quick bite of hot food provided by the host club (someobody must be in the Army Logistics Corps).  Then it was off to setup the tents and by a complete miracle, the wind dropped, the clouds cleared and we had a beautiful sunny evening by which to setup our camp, get the fire going and start roasting the marshmallows.    After that, Athy had a series of fun games organised for the teams such as sack races and tug-o-war.

Best tent competition was easily won by John Martin who we think packed his golf umbrella by mistake instead of his tent !

Well done Athy, hope to be back again next year with next seasons u10s.

Photos courtesy Con O’Donoghue – View Album

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