Luxembourg Tournament- 31.05.03 -St Kilians Wuerzburg PRO Report

The Luxembourg Tournament:

St Kilians Wuerzburg took part in its first tournament of the year- The Black Stuff 7's.We joined Luxembourg, The Black Pig selection, Guernsey, Barcelona, Paris, Munich, Amsterdam & the Hague. Wuerzburg joined up with a Rennes team to make up the mandatory 13 squad.

3 players set off from Wuerzburg on Friday Eoin McGuire, JP McSherry and returning member Niall Twomey (fresh from an 8 month stint with American forces in the Gulf war.) In Luxembourg we teamed up with 2 new St. kilians members Niall "Lolly" Lawlor and Tadhg Kelly (Both Stuttgart).We also had Paul Larkin (Hamburg) Tom Daly ( Düsseldorf).In the Black Stuff pub on the Friday we were able to harass another player Noel McNulty (La Rochelle, France) into joining the St Kilians bandwagon. On the field of play we were also joined by Pete( Luxembourg). We now had a team of 9 but since 13 was the allowed quota we joined up with 5 players from Rennes.( no! the sums don't add up)

The tournament was played at the sun-drenched Boen Koen Sports complex. Games were 7 minutes a side. In the first game a nervous Wuerzburg/Rennes selection went down 0-2 points to 0- 1 to Amsterdam. The 2nd game was marred by a serious shoulder injury to Ex-Munich star Paul Larkin resulting in his departure from the tournament. An improved performance by the boys wasn't enough against a free scoring Barcelona team who in the end beat us by 0-10 points to 1-4 with Noel grabbing a great goal for us. Our final game was against Luxembourg( who made the final). We finally seemed to be getting it together against the best team in the group. We began to pass the ball better and create some excellent opportunities but unfortunately ended being defeated by Luxembourg. Pete had to withdraw with a hamstring injury. A last minute goal from JP McSherry after some great link up play from Eoin ended with a goal which wasn't enough to save Wuerzburg/ Rennes from defeat on a score line of 1-5 to 1-2.

We learned a lot from this tournament .We have uncovered some good new talent . Hopefully these guys will play again with us. All we need are a few training sessions together to get the cohesion right. Many of the Wuerzburg players couldn't make it to Luxembourg. For the next tournament in Munich in August we hope to have a full Wuerzburg squad .We know we can do a lot better and the fact that we now have our first tournament under our belts will stand to us.

The lads gave it their all. Eoin lead the players on the field, JP improved on the last performance in the Hague, Niall coming back from Iraq coped well considering his long absence from the game. Lolly and Tadhg played their hearts out , Paul and Tom brought experience and composure to the team and Pete was very physical in attack. Noel scored a great goal and was always a threat to the opposition. For the Rennes boys goalkeeper Billy was very secure and alert.

Unfortunately we didn't get to the Quarter Finals. In the final Luxembourg played the Black Pig ( also Luxembourg), with The Black Pig surprisingly winning in the end.

The after- tournament celebrations took place in the Etap Hotel Function room and later to the Black Stuff where the celebrations really kicked into gear. Many thanks to the Luxembourg Irish Sports club and especially to Deirdre Ennis, who was our "Minder" for the weekend. The craic was great !Our party finally ended at around 5am on Sunday morning. On Sunday afternoon we made the trip back to Wuerzburg with heavy hearts. We intend to make amends in August……………….

Beir bua agus beannacht,

JP Mc Sherry PRO St Kilians Wuerzburg