In attendance, The Hague, Brussels, Munich, Luxembourg, a lot of planes and a few vultures.
Situation, we were happy enough.
The second weekend in July saw the 2007 European hurling championship decamp to Zurich. The Hague team arrived over a couple of days and with a small contingent from Kilkenny, were all in place on the Friday night. A section of a festival in the city was sampled, (seemingly a 3 or 4 year event but the reason for it remained elusive) before turning in for an early night. We arrived in Uster to find the pitch bright and early on the Saturday morning.
Once there the paper work and the like was taken care of and we got down to business. The draw had given us games in the order of Luxembourg, Zurich and then Brussels. Not all bad we had come a bit of a way to play hurling, and getting a chance at Luxembourg straight off was good. With the day quite hot we didn’t do an extensive warm up and so were given a chance to see Brussels lay down a marker against Zurich in the opening game.
Starting against Luxembourg the day was getting warm (it would reach 28oC ), the games were set for 15 minutes a half and the referee for this occasion was a man from Galway. Luxembourg had nearly stopped us in Brussels, had beaten us in Luxembourg and had been constantly doing so in the football over the past few months. Fitness appeared to be catching us at both codes, that and a small bit of luck, hurling wise we should have been well above them but what would be more important this day? We had a selection of subs and Jim to do the calls on the sideline and so were set for a game.
From the off we went at them, with the mid-field of Kenny and Diarmuid bolstered by the half back line of the Johns both Forde and O’Malley, with the defence marshalled by Mattie and Derek The forwards were provided with plenty of ball to cause all manner of problems and from Shane to Denis they dully obliged. However in an area that would blight us for the day Luxembourg were constantly provided a lifeline from needless frees that they were able to make full use of. In the end The Hague ran out winners, Luxembourg were unable to get past the defence to get access to the goal and while converted frees kept them close it was not enough.
The second game was against the hosts. The champions for the previous 3 years they are in a rebuilding stage which impressively includes a number of enthusiastic local players who aren’t half bad. Unfortunately in this type of competition there can be no sympathy or altruism during the games and the Hague ran out comfortable winners.
The other games by now had thrown up a combination which meant we had to play the last group game. Not ideal under the conditions, however Luxembourg had refused to be helpful and didn’t let Brussels beat them. As it stood, ourselves and Luxembourg had won 2 games, Brussels had won one game but depending on our game could still make the final.
This would prove to be the toughest game of the day. Brussels were well buoyed up needing to beat us well to reach the final. We may have been a slight bit complacent with 2 wins but we were also beginning to take a few injuries, the first time that the hurlers have really had this year. Fortunately unlike the Brussels tournament we had a bench to call on and there was some repositioning to deal with this problem. Des moving back to goal, Liam filling the gap in the forwards. The game was never really more than a score apart throughout. The Hague was leading for most of the game up to the last five minutes when an extended Brussels attack found the goal and took the lead by 2 points. The Hague managed to claw back one point but couldn’t take the lead. A very close game finishing with some confusion over who had won, however this time Brussels deservedly took the credit.
Due to earlier results Brussels needed another 6 points to reach the final so once again The Hague faced Luxembourg in the deciding game. Injuries had by now forced us to field a team much changed about from the opener, Denis had moved from forward to goal, John Forde moving from half back to full forward, a rearrangements that seems to have confused our opponents a small bit. Again we suffered from conceding frees, however strong defence from Derek Butler and John O’Malley and good interplay between Denis and the forwards laid good foundations for our game. With Des and Shane constantly moving, Luxembourg’s backs were unable to deal with John and Jim as they developed a nose for goal (Jim continuing a run that gave him 7 goals in the day). Ending the first half 6 point’s up injuries had not removed anybody. Despite Luxembourg’s best efforts for the second half they were unable to level. A goal pegged back our lead to 3 points but beyond that scores were traded on a tit for tat fashion including a point from a sideline cut from Liam and we ran out deserving winners playing perhaps our best hurling of the day.
Tellingly our fitness had improved noticeable since the previous tournament. Every Luxembourg attack in the last game was subject to constant harassment. Also improved was our target shooting which unlike the Luxembourg tournament allowed us to win a game we dominated. This puts us in pole position for the European Championship. After the Zurich tournament we can consider this, our hurling is enough to win the championship, our fitness is good enough so we can play our best game in the final and we have found a plan B for our forwards (possibly a plan C if John O’Malley has his way). Basically leading up to the final tournament of the year in The Hague in September the championship is ours to lose.
