Luke O’Tooles make friends for life down in Wexford
THURSDAY evening was when I really felt like Feile was happening, packing my bag making sure I had all my gear ready, tried to go to bed early, that sort of worked out!
Friday morning, I had a good lie in to make sure I was ready and I was looking forward to the meeting team at the bus.
After the usual team photo we got going, it was hot and we had the music playing and everyone was in good mood.
We arrived in good time at St Mary’s Rosslare for our first games.
First up were St Mary’s. The game started well with some great scores, but we were not at our best at the start of second half and by the time we got going again we were a few scores down.
Our second game was against Wolf Tones. We performed much better but didn’t manage to get on top.
The Bus journey to our host club Kilmore was quiet for the first 10 minutes, but we had cheered up by the time we arrived at Kilmore to a good welcome. Kilmore were happy as they had won their first games.
We were meeting out host families, which felt a bit awkward at first. After our goodbyes we headed off to the families and got some dinner. The family were really nice and made us feel at home.
Saturday morning we had a presentation and parade at the pitch. I’m not a fan as I was the captain and had to pose for the pictures!
We were playing the host club, and felt confident going into match as we knew we had to perform.
We were on top the whole game, and Kilmore only drew level with the last puck of the game.
We were happy that we had played really well, but also relieved as it would have been awkward if we had lost or won too well!
Only disappointment was that one our players hurt their hamstring in the match.
Back on the bus to our shield quarter-final in Bree.
We hurled them off the field in the first half, but let them back a bit in the second, a goal in the second half settled it and we won well. There was loud support for us which was great. A happy bus going home, with great banter knowing we were going to be playing on Sunday.
The club put on a disco and some food for us and the visiting camogie club when we got back, which was great and we had a great evening getting to know the Kilmore lads. We got to bed a bit later than our coaches maybe have liked!
Sunday morning was an early start, a bit rushed to get to the bus to head off to Carlow for our semi-final after saying goodbye to our host families.
Everyone was a bit sleepy going up. We were playing a team from Armagh, and we were drawing at the end of the first half but lost out in the end.
Everyone was disappointed after playing so well on Saturday, anyway we packed up and headed for home.
It was a great weekend, a bit hot, but we all really enjoyed the experience.
A big thank you to the host families for looking after us, our coaches Kieran, John and Pete for putting up with us and all our supporters for travelling to watch us play.