The provincial club championships have brought so much to the GAA over the last two decades, and I’m delighted that Na Rossa will get a taste of it this Saturday when we take on Lisnaskea Emmets in O’Donnell Park.
It’s been a brilliant journey so far this year. Even now when the clocks have gone back and the evenings shorter, our players are still keen to come back from London to play, and the boys don’t mind braving the elements at training.
It’s been a long season but we want to make sure we are still alive in the championship next week.
We are up against a Lisnaskea side who won the All-Ireland Intermediate title ten years ago, and they have won twenty odd senior titles so they have serious pedigree.
We are a proud club and it’s not easy to keep things going. There are three primary schools in the area and you’re looking at around fifty students between the ages of five and twelve.
There were nine or ten children in Doochary school last year and their numbers doubled when there was an influx of Ukrainians into the area.
It’s a challenge to keep the whole show on the road and the one word that is not allowed to be used down our way is ‘retirement’.
You might be married with a host of kids, or living outside the country, but that doesn’t mean you won’t get the call to put on the white and black jersey.
Seven of our lads are over forty and we need them to boost our numbers – it’s as simple as that.
Some of the boys would have thought they would go through their whole career without getting a championship medal so there has been a real buzz around the community in recent weeks.
Now we are going into Ulster and like every other team we don’t want the good run to end.
We would love to make it through to a provincial semi-final but we are going to have to bring a huge performance if we are to see off Lisnaskea.
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