On Saturday morning in glorious sunshine we had 31 players in the North Cork hurling stronghold of Newtownshandrum for a blitz. We had 3 teams which each played 3 x 20 minutes games on an excellent surface.

Coaches on the day which included Martin Conlon, Alan Iceman Mulready, Paul Fitzpatrick, Stephen Corbett, Ultan Heffernan and Declan Murphy shuffled their squads for each game with the boys experiencing a number of positions throughout in order to understand positioning and how their markers think as we say.

A general observation was the high level of skill on show and with stats showing 50% of the boys caught clean ball in the air it does show they are putting in the hours on their own at home off the wall as well as together on the training fields.

There has been a big commitment to hurling by these boys since U6 and this again was epitomized on Saturday as boys came back form their Summer holidays to play in the blitz and a special mention to Matty Maxwell who came the whole way to take a fitness test before the game such was his desire to play.

Back to Go Games next with lots of tournaments and trips still to come thought the year. We look forward to possibly returning Newtown for the Naughton memorial tournament in early September.

A special word of thanks to Donal and Brendan Mulcahy for hosting us and the hospitality for our travelling party was most welcome after the game.