The Munich Colmcilles Ladies Footballers, accompanied by coach Noel Mc Kenna, mentor Daire Kivlehen and cultural officer/translator Sandrine Halary, travelled to Rennes, France on the weekend of the 11^th of October and competed in the penultimate round of the Ladies Gaelic Football European Championship.

An excellent trip was had by all, a big thanks to the Rennes GAA club for organising what turned out to be a great a day of football, followed by nice bit of grub (some of us even had multiple portions) and topped off by some night time high jinks (here a quick mention of the intrepid hotel hopping antics of Lauren and the lad from the Hague cant go amiss!)

• Standing from left: Sylvia, Sanna, Susi, Natski, Noel
• Kneeling from left: Frances, Anita, Maria, Laura, Lauren
• Front Angie

More pictures can be seen in our albums.

Munich competed in a round-robin format against the following teams, in this order:

• Paris
• Brussels
• Rennes

Here follows a quick summary of the games.

Game 1 Vs. Paris

This thrilling encounter ebbed and flowed like a bad pint of Guinness on the morning after a good session. The result could have went either way, with both teams holding precious leads at various intervals, it finished however up at five points a piece. Highlights featured Sanna ‘the Sanitäter’ Fagerström pulling off a terrific point blank save, Maria ‘kivo’ Lane and Angie ‘Angelino’ Buechler kicking some great points, all this was aided and abbeted by Susi ‘Susirillo’ Schab, who played some great football from midfield.

Game 2 Vs. Brussels

This proved to be a bit of a waterloo for the Munich ladies. Despite dominating for good spells, with Susi and Lauren ‘Laurenzo’ doing some great work at midfield, being superbly assisted by Anit ‘Juanita’ O’Conner from center-back, Brussels went on to win handily enough in the end. Their ability to take their scores and punish Munich with some really good counter attacking football comprised the deciding factors in this game. Munich never gave up or dropped the heads, the defence marshalled by Frances ‘Franno’ Masterson, Sylvia ‘Sylvino’ Sanz and Natski ‘Natskirillo’ Oba were tremendous in the second half, and continued to push Munich forward right to the end.

Game 3 Vs. Rennes

The final game of the round robin series featured Munich competing against the local ladies. Munich went on to put on a great display of score taking in the second half, with Laura ‘Toopsie’ Toops having her best game of the tournament, and Munich won out easily enough in the end!

Conclusion

The final featured Paris and Brussels, with the winners being the ladies from Paris. So congratulations from all here at Munich go to the Paris ladies footballers, well done girls!

Munich can take great heart from this tournament, holding the eventual winners to a draw illustrates the potential that exists within this relatively (in football years anyhow) young team. With a little more astuteness in taking our scores and more cuteness in general play, there is plenty of hope left for us yet!

Next and final instalment of the Ladies Gaelic Football European Championship takes place in Maastricht, on November 8th, watch this space.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 10th, 2008 at 1:05 pm and is filed under Football News, Ladies Football. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.