Hurling leagues start this weekend

Big weekend ahead for our Junior hurling stars, the league kicks off with a double header in Cloughbawn on Saturday (the 17th, yes Paddy’s day !) at 3.30pm and 5.00pm. See the fixtures page on website for further details.

The Intermediates are out too, up in Ballyfad (for their annual trip) on Monday 19th at 2pm.

And to get you in the humour, here’s the famous “You know you are a Junior Hurler when…..” article

  • You spend all winter on the beer speculating on who will be brought in to manage the junior hurling team next year.
  • The hardest tackle you will make all year is in an indoor soccer match in January when you break your brother-in-law’s leg.
  • There are 35 at training under lights on a bitter February night (unfit but enthusiastic) – the average for August is 7 (unfit, sick of training and making silage)
  • The club treasurer spends some time at the AGM lamenting the yearly cost of running a club and especially the bill for hurleys; a month later, the team is being urged to “give ‘em timber lads – we have plenty of hurleys on the sideline…”
  • When you go for a pick-up, you tap the ball at least twice on the hurley before you fumble it
  • Ground hurling is for juveniles and camogie players
  • The full forward has his son and grandnephew in the corners
  • The grandnephew is two years older
  • For a 2.30 throw-in, you start packing your gear bag at 2.40 and still manage to be on the field before the referee even arrives
  • You can get a match called off because your star player is playing divisional under-16 the following week
  • Your tight marking corner back never gives an inch – except of course, when the ball gets inside his own 50 and he charges out after it with all the other backs, forgetting that the other team are even on the field.
  • Your goalie lets in a sitter every second game – this usually happens after you have scored 5 points from play to reel in a difficult half-time deficit or in the first minute if it is a final
  • Your full-forward can’t score but “he’s a good man to bust up the play”
  • Your centre forward can’t score either but “he’ll stop a good man from hurling”
  • Your championship is either a round robin that requires you to play six league games to eliminate one team, or a knockout starting in October
  • Any members of your panel that claim to have back injuries are either lazy or completely daft – unless you can see blood, bruises or bandages, they are making it up
  • Before every match, the forwards are told to stay wide and not bunch – but this is not what happens. The only time any forward goes wide is to take a sideline cut or if they are looking for water
  • Your backs play from behind waving a hurley with one hand whilst resting the other on the forward’s back – this is why all your scores and all their scores come from frees
  • You can’t field a team during the fortnight of the Leaving Cert
  • Your star player always has one other brother “that was even better but he couldn’t stay off the drink”
  • Your left-corner-back plays at No.4 because he can only strike off his left side Ditto No.7
  • The more people instruct you to “let fly if you don’t get it up the first time”, the more you ignore them.