James & Catherine O’Sullivan Memorial Cup Match Reports
Date: Saturday May 30th 1.30pm
Playing: Mike, Jim, Spike, Shawn, Erik, George, Tripp, Ryan, Josh, Tim, Jeff, Jon, Zach, Joe, Cormac & David
Not Playing: Thomas & Scott (injured)
What a tournament to start our club’s playing career. Almost a full turn out of players and with only one person missing on the day. This was a win in itself and a testament to the players in the club. Click the “Read the rest of this entry” to continue reading the match reports and to see some of the action shots from the day (pics at the end of the post)
Our first game saw us playing against a strong Charlotte team. The Charlotte club has been around a long time and so…
…comes with a lot of tradition and history. We started well but Charlotte opened up the score with a couple of points and that always-dreaded early goal….BUT we didn’t drop out heads…if anything it gelled the team together even more…I am thinking we are going to be a pressure team :) With points from Tim and a fantastic goal from Jon we were on the scoreboard and our nerves were settled. The Half time score saw the Wolfhounds down by 11 points (Total points are in the brackets) – Wolfhounds 1-02 (5) v Charlotte C 3-07 (16).
With a passionate team talk at halftime by coach Tim Cronin the Wolfhounds got a new lease of life. As soon as the ball was thrown in the air the Wolfhounds really did hit the ground running. We got some early scores, played great defense and suffocated the Charlotte attack. But it was not all plain sailing…the game was rough and the Charlotte team hit hard. But we fought back well and took our scores when we could. After a great team performance we out scored Charlotte by 8 points to 6 points in the second half to finish the game: Wolfhounds 2-07 (13) v Charlotte C 4-10 (22)
Team’s first point: Scored by Tim Cronin
Team’s first goal: Scored by Jon Eilbes
That is our First game in the bag!
Game: #2
Date: Saturday May 30th 3.45pm
Playing: Mike, Jim, Spike, Shawn, Erik, George, Tripp, Ryan, Josh, Tim, Jeff, Jon, Zach, Joe, Cormac & David
Not Playing: Thomas & Scott (injured)
Our second game saw us playing against the host team Raleigh B. The Raleigh club has only been around since 2012 and the B team is relatively new, so we knew we were playing against a team with a little more experience than us…since we only started playing together in Feb (about 4 months ago :) ).
We started strong and opened the scoring after about 3 minutes but Raleigh started to bring that experience to the fore a little bit and showed a bit more hunger for the ball. After conceding another early goal this was a little dagger in our side and I felt like this was the moment our collective team legs got a little bit heavier. We struggled to score, only added one additional point before the half and Raleigh soon were increasing the gap between them and us. The Half time score saw the Wolfhounds down by 5 points – Wolfhounds 0-02 (2) v Raleigh B 1-04 (7).
The half time team talk was dominated by moral boosters and orange slices and leaving the inner Wolfhound circle we thought we had it in us to grab this game by the Jersey and say “Hey, this is our half”…BUT it was not meant to be. Our scoring drought continued and we only added two more points to our tally and Raleigh looked a little bit more comfortable out there. We have to commend Raleigh for a great performance and it was a real learning experience for us. The final score: Wolfhounds 0-4 (4) v Raleigh B 2-9 (15)
Summary
So two games and two results that made us go back to the drawing board BUT I am not going to put these down as losses because we did a really fantastic thing this day. We competed against established teams in a traditional Irish sport that most of out team only started learning since Feb 2015. This is a brilliant achievement for all members of the Wolfhounds and everyone should feel proud. So well done all!
Supporters
It would be remiss of me not to mention our supporters. Although we are nearly a 2 hr drive from the Raleigh fields we brought a lot of Winston-Salem support with us. They were LOUD & PROUD and we heard them cheering and shouting for us during the on field battles!
A special THANK YOU to Jim Keegan’s daughter & son-in-law for helping out with the score board, to Sara March for organizing tents, drinks and nutrition for the team and to our official unofficial team photographers Larry (group/distance shots) & Leilani (action shots). We appreciate all the help!
Winston-Salem Wolfhounds GAA Abú!
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