Roots & All is a project where we pick a few teams that don’t normally make the spotlight week in week out and feature them regularly throughout an entire campaign.
It’s been a busy few weeks on the rugby front with our youths claiming Connacht league glory and our mini rugby players doing us proud in Connacht rugby blitzes and the Claremorris St. Patrick’s day parade.
The U13’s had a fine league win over neighbours Ballinrobe RFC last weekend. Our lads made a great start and were ahead at the half time break. The second half was just as exciting as the Colts held on for 17-10 win. Next up is a Connacht Plate semi-final date with Ballinasloe, scheduled for this weekend. A win here would put us in our first every Connacht Plate final.
The 14’s have been basking in Connacht League glory for the last week as we claimed our first every youth trophy 10 days ago. It was see-saw battle with the Galway men of Connemara as typified by a half time score of 17-14 in our favour. The second half was just exciting with the score level at 24-24 going into the final seconds, before a try with the last play of the game gave us our first ever youth rugby trophy on a score line of 31-24.
The victories team made a triumphant return to the town of Claremorris with cars beeping and flags waving to mark the historic achievement. A huge well done to the management of Pearse Hahessy and Micheal Smith and all concerned with this great bunch of lads.
The U17’s have been rather quite in recent weeks as we are still waiting for a date to be fixed for our league semi-final game with Ballinasloe. This game will hopefully take place over the coming weeks where a win would put us into our second youth league final of the season.
The mini rugby players have been busy over the last few weeks. I was in Corinthians with the U12’s last weekend where we took part in a busy day or rugby. We had five games in total on the day with our lads giving it their all in every game they played. Last weekend saw the girls head to Tuam RFC for a great morning of rugby where our girls had an action packed morning of rugby. The U8’s and U9’s were also on the road last week as both teams headed to Castlebar RFC for the Connacht blitz. Both teams had three games on the day and by all accounts a thoroughly enjoyable day was had by all who travelled.
We were also well represented in the Claremorris St. Patrick’s day parade. It was great to see so many red jerseys on show despite the wet conditions. Also big thanks to one of our coaches Micheal Toughey who put in a huge amount of effort coordinating the entire day for the Colts.
For the next few weeks we will be busy with our last few youth games of the season, while the mini rugby players will have training and blitzes as we approach the seasons end. We will also be recruiting volunteers to run in the Mayo Mini Marathon which is a 10km run taking place on Sunday May 5th.
