At the weekend the Galway lads, led by Barry Loughnane, hosted a great event up at Clifden. Two days of camping, kayaking, drinking and generally chilling out in glorious sunshine makes for a pretty perfect kayaking event! The hole was working in the afternoons too, so there was no need for an crazy early drive to get there like with most kayaking events! The general plan for the weekend was to show up on Saturday afternoon, have a paddling/coaching session followed by a flatwater freestyle comp and then head to Dun Loughlin beach for camping, bbq and beers. Sunday then there was the main competition followed by the traditional inflatable class.
The flatwater competition went really well, even though I havn't done much flatwater freestyle recently I think the training I'm doing is helping me hit moves more consistantly than I was a few months ago and I managed to get second place behind Barry Loughnane. Unfortunatly the actual competition on Sunday was nowhere near as successful and I finished the heat feeling like I had done nothing. I came sixth in the end which although it's not last is not where I want to be. Oh well, more work to be done obviously!
On Saturday evening we had a bbq, the Irish Freestyle AGM and a small session. Since the AGM I am now secretary of the Irish Freestyle Committe. Any suggestions on what to do for the year or advice on how to do a secretarys job is more than welcome! Another advantage of the hole only working in the afternoon was that we got a nice long lie in on Sunday morning. That's another rareity at kayaking events, and a nice change! The less said about the competition the better but paddling the hole afterwards was good craic, my paddling started to kick back into gear and as the hole got faster and more retentive it was entertaining watching people to keep some kind of control over what kind of ends they were doing. Eventually we got sick of getting beaten every time we went into the hole and called it a day, and headed back towards Clifden for the prizegiving.
Next weekend I'm heading back to Clifden with a gang from ULKC, it should be a good chance to get the place properly figured out and hopefully improve the results at the next comp. I'm looking forward to that now, it should be another good weekend. Bis Bald!
A log of a single-handed, non-stop circumnavigation of the island of Ireland in a 22ft sailboat departing in June 2020.
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Monday, July 8, 2013
1st place, Brian Boru polo competition in Killaloe!
Last weekend the annual Brian Boru polo competion was held in Killaloe. It took a bit of work to find people who were available but eventually we managed to bully enough people into playing so that UL could field a team. Saturday went well except for one small hiccup when we lost to UCC in one of the first round matches. We made the most of the day, using all the matches as a chance to teach the people on the team who had never played before how to play polo before the important matches started on Sunday. All of our other matches went well and we qualified for the semis in second place, leaving us playing the 3rd placed team from North Wall in the semi final. Saturday night was great craic. A quick trip home to pick up food, beer and a tent and I was chilling out for the evening with lots of cool people from UCD and UCC. It also let me have a valuble lie in the next morning compared to all the rest of the UL team!
The next day was the big one, we had one first round match left to go before the semi's which was our only chance to introduce another batch of polo virgins to the game before the finals. That went well, Rob and Dean learnt most of the rules and then we had a great match against a solid North Wall team in the semi. This gave us a chance to restore some damaged pride in the final against UCC. Sean Mullens suggested playing 10 minutes a side in the final instead of the usual 8 but thankfully he was overruled by the players on the pitch! 8 minutes is plenty when you're playing at that kind of intensity! Everyone on both teams was really fired up for the final and everyone gave it their all but eventually we finished up a few goals ahead. Delighted with the result! Hopefully the win will kick a bit of momentum into ULKC that we can keep up over the summer and into varsities training in September.
I also played as a sub for Galway A in division 1 at the weekend, and we won that too! Div 1 is a whole different story to div 3! It was great to get the chance to be a part of it and thanks to the lads for letting me play with them. Fair play to Rob, Dean, Emma and Mike who all had their first taste of polo at the weekend, they all got the hang of what they were doing incredibly quickly, and we couldn't have done it without them. And although the weather was a massive help in making the weekend as fun as it was, most of the credit has to go to the organisers. Everything ran like clockwork, not an easy thing to coordinate when you've got 15 teams playing in two seperate divisions.
The next few weeks are going to be pretty good, next weekend is a combined surf kayak/windsurfing trip with the UL windsurfing trip and the following two weekends there are events in Clifden, starting with a round of the Irish freestyle league. So lets hope this weather sticks around for another while!
The next day was the big one, we had one first round match left to go before the semi's which was our only chance to introduce another batch of polo virgins to the game before the finals. That went well, Rob and Dean learnt most of the rules and then we had a great match against a solid North Wall team in the semi. This gave us a chance to restore some damaged pride in the final against UCC. Sean Mullens suggested playing 10 minutes a side in the final instead of the usual 8 but thankfully he was overruled by the players on the pitch! 8 minutes is plenty when you're playing at that kind of intensity! Everyone on both teams was really fired up for the final and everyone gave it their all but eventually we finished up a few goals ahead. Delighted with the result! Hopefully the win will kick a bit of momentum into ULKC that we can keep up over the summer and into varsities training in September.
I also played as a sub for Galway A in division 1 at the weekend, and we won that too! Div 1 is a whole different story to div 3! It was great to get the chance to be a part of it and thanks to the lads for letting me play with them. Fair play to Rob, Dean, Emma and Mike who all had their first taste of polo at the weekend, they all got the hang of what they were doing incredibly quickly, and we couldn't have done it without them. And although the weather was a massive help in making the weekend as fun as it was, most of the credit has to go to the organisers. Everything ran like clockwork, not an easy thing to coordinate when you've got 15 teams playing in two seperate divisions.
The next few weeks are going to be pretty good, next weekend is a combined surf kayak/windsurfing trip with the UL windsurfing trip and the following two weekends there are events in Clifden, starting with a round of the Irish freestyle league. So lets hope this weather sticks around for another while!
Team ULKC; Rob, Dean, Gavin, Jack, Me and Donie after winning the final on Sunday. Missing Mike, Emma Porter and Emma Ryan.
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