Another very successful tournament bathed in sunshine! 27 teams – the format was changed this year with the Plate competition being reserved for ‘B’ teams only – there were 8 and this worked out extremely well. All the other teams played in four groups with top two progressing to Cup QF; 3rd placed team in each group went directly to Shield QF there was a playoff among the 4th and 5th placed teams to determine the teams entering the Shield QF.
It was a great festival of football with high levels of skills and it ran very smoothly across the six pitches. In the Final of the Cup St Colmcille’s Gaels (Bettystown) defeated Mayobridge Gaels by a single point after extra time. The Shield Final was contested between Burren Gaels and Roche Emmets (Louth) with Burren picking up the honours. The Plate Final was another tight encounter between Bosco Ógs and Burren Ógs with the Newry side clinching the title by two points.
The Presentations were made by members of Daniel’s family – sister Lauryn spoke on behalf of the family thanking everyone for coming and helping keeping Daniel’s memory alive. Grandmother Mrs Clare Devlin presented the medals to the Plate finalists and the Plate to the joint captains of the Bosco team; Lauryn presented the medals to the Shield finalists and the Shield to the joint captains of the Burren team; Daniel’s mother Donna Andre presented the medals to St Colmcille’s and Mayobridge and the Cup to the captain of the St Colmcille’s Gaels teams.
There were well over 400 children participating in the tournament and of course it couldn’t be this successful without a lot of input from a lot of people – the participating teams and their mentors, the administrators Alistair, Lorraine and Anita; our U10 mentors who set up the pitches on Friday evening, Sean Cairns, PJ McGreevy, Youth Officer Niall Rafferty, Shop keepers Noleen and Shane Cairns, Majella Kelly, the parents for the loads of sandwiches and other eatables, the members of Daniel’s family for manning the Burger Bar and the kitchen; all those who acted as referees – Cathal Murray, John Brown, Conal Brown, Sarah Bloomfield, Paul McConville, Kieran Kelly, Amy Lorwry, Eamon Grant, Lyndon Brown, Daire Brown; the youngsters who acted as runners to get the scores back to the club house and kept the competition running as close to schedule as possible; those who washed dishes and cleaned up after the event – thank you one and all
