Day fifty of the juvenile challenge, the winner of Barry Heffernan’s jersey is revealed while the camogie club battle to win nicest jersey in Tipperary. All this and more in this week’s news on the Blues
Helping the Vulnerable
Once again we wish to thank our army of selfless volunteers who have been busy purchasing groceries, fuel, delivering prescriptions and generally helping the vulnerable and over-70s in our community throughout the last three weeks.
It is during times of crises that we really see the benefit of a tight and caring community and the people of Nenagh and indeed our club, have been more than willing to put the shoulder to the wheel to help those in need.
Our volunteers will continue to provide these services for as long as is required and if you need any assistance please contact club coordinator Bartley Ryan on 086 735 8359.
Thank You Niall
Since the current lockdown began one man in our club has gone above and beyond the call of duty to ensure our juvenile boys and girls were kept entertained while maintaining their GAA skills. Everyday, for fifty days, Niall Cahill has organised a daily skills challenge for players and families which has been extremely well received by all. Niall’s initiative and drive in bringing sport and positivity to all in the club and out into the community at a time when it was badly needed and we had no end date in sight is appreciated by all sections of our club.
We also wish to thank all the adult players for kindly setting these challenges and not one person refused when asked by Niall which shows the brilliant and selfless community spirit in Nenagh Éire Óg. We also want to thank Barry Heffernan for donating one of his jerseys as a prize for the juveniles.
We will take a short break now for a week to ten days and when we return, engaging with the different groups will fall back to the respective management groups. We will continue to follow HSE and GAA protocol and that will decide when and how we can return safely to field training.
Winner of Barry Heffernan’s Jersey Revealed
Since the outbreak of the pandemic, thanks to the trojan efforts of Niall Cahill, we have been running daily challenges for our juvenile players which they have been enthusiastically participating in. Tipperary All-Ireland medal winner Barry Heffernan offered one of his championship jerseys from last year’s campaign to one of the juveniles and the winner was Robbie O’Brien from the under-10 team. Robbie will be presented with his jersey by Barry when training eventually resumes.
Barry has a message for Robbie and all of our juveniles.
Community Collaborations Across Nenagh Municipal District
North Tipperary Development Company are delighted to collaborate with several local organisations to help distribute the list of services flyer currently available. Pictured are several organisations that have collaborated to distribute the NTDC CoVid 19 Response Flyer throughout Nenagh Municipal District. Pictured – Joanne McCarthy – NTDC, Denise Kennedy & Jason Fitzpatrick – Nenagh Irish Red Cross, Damian O Donoghue – Nenagh Community Response Tipp North, Mary Jo O Reilly – Nenagh Éire Óg, Tracey Thompson – Tipperary County Council, Member of An Garda Siochana- Nenagh Branch , Philomena Keyes, Seamus O Sullivan, John Bonfield and David Kyne – Tús / Rural Social Scheme.
These flyers are currently being distributed and if you would like to get a copy you can download one here: https://www.ntdc.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Nenagh-Local-Flyer.pdf
Thank You to our Front Line Heroes
There’s no doubt that during these troubled times the country have a lot of heroes from the delivery drivers to the shop assistants to the HSE staff and this week we have shown just some of our appreciation to them for their bravery in keeping the country running and helping our sick while putting themselves at risk. Above are David, Isobel and Anna Mullarkey showing their thanks.
If you want to show your thanks to our front line heroes please email your picture to eireognenagh@gmail.com or send a private message to any of our social media channels.
Handstand Challenge
Last weekend we had some great laughs as our adult players responded to a handstand challenge where they had to put on an Éire Óg top while doing a handstand however, three of our younger players also took part.
This first video is from five-year-old Shane Ryan. Absolutely brilliant Shane. Well done.
While the Coonan sisters, Amy and Lucy also took part.
Check out eight-year-old Julian Zilioniene’s fantastic effort. Well done to everyone who took part.
Juvenile and Camogie News
Éire Óg Juvenile club and Camogie club skills challenge continued each day this week having completed 7 weeks to date. We are taking a short break after day fifty which fell on last Saturday, May second. After the break the coaches from each group will develop a training plan to take our Future Stars through to return of games. We would like to sincerely thank everyone who contributed to and supported this project. Each person who was involved and supported the project should feel very proud to have made it the outstanding success that it has turned out to be. A special thank you must go to Niall Cahill who was so quick out of the blocks at the start of lock-down with this project. Through his initiative and drive on this project Niall has brought engagement, a sense of connection and positivity to the young members of our club and their families during a time when it was most needed and appreciated.
This weeks challenges began with the juvenile members setting a challenge for the adult players, the challenge set was to put on a jersey while in handstand position against a wall. The challenge was duly accepted by many adult members and participation videos can be seen on the clubs Facebook and Twitter accounts.
Focus reverted back to the juvenile players for the rest of the week with challenges around skills development, strength and conditioning and more family fun. Setting the skills development challenge was under eight boys coach, all Ireland champion and world champion handballer Brian O’Brien, mile buiochas B.O.B, A big thank you to the Coonan, Brett and Ryan families for bringing some great family fun to the week. The Finn brothers, Marcus, Alexander and Pierce led the charge with a skills challenge in the sunshine, thanks boys, great job. There was a great response to the family challenges with large numbers of families submitting scores. Our youngest leader to date set a strength and conditioning challenge, under eight Star Ruaidhri O’Brien, he made the challenge look easy and he did it with serious street cred thrown in. Recordings of all challenges can be found on the club Facebook page should anyone like to try the challenges again or take a look back.
Day fifty of the skills challenges concluded with the draw for Barry Heffernan’s Tipperary jersey from last years All Ireland campaign. The draw was open to all juvenile players who registered a participation in the challenges at any stage during the fifty days. Altogether one hundred and fifteen names were in the draw and the lucky winner drawn was Robbie O’Brien from the under ten hurlers. Robbie is a huge fan of Barry’s and was absolutely thrilled to hear the great news that he had won Barry’s Tipperary jersey. Thank you Barry for the very kind gesture of donating your jersey to the skills project and for your support during the project also. We can say with certainty that we all very much look forward to reciprocating that support which you have shown towards our young Stars once you get back to match action.
Community spirit was very much alive and well this week with our young Stars doing us proud by entertaining their neighbors while observing social distance. Brian and Alex Ley featured on RTE radio one because of the efforts they were going to in order to lift the spirits of their elderly neighbors in their estate, well done boys, not all heroes wear capes as the saying goes and this is certainly true of these boys.
Our juvenile players have gone to great efforts this week to display their appreciation of the work being done by the front line workers. The Mullarkey children, David, Anna and Isobel came up with a very novel way of expressing their gratitude by spelling out their thanks using training equipment and hurls and not least themselves to complete their message of support. We had beautiful artwork of appreciation from a number of our young Stars including Evie Hogan, Ben and Jack McCormack, The Coonans and Jackie Hayes Sheedy with her daughters Hannah and Rebecca showing their support. Great work and Im sure those messages are providing much positivity to the hardworking front line workers.
Thank you to all the parents who encourage and support practicing our games at home each day, this is central to the children maintaining and developing skill levels and ultimately the enjoyment of our games. It would be fabulous to see this translate into an increased number of coaches within the club in the future.
Stay practicing, encourage each other, stay safe, observe the guidelines and mind each other.
Blast from the Past
Here is a blast from the past, the North Tipperary senior hurling semi-final from 19th August 1981 when Kilruane MacDonagh’s played Borris-Ileigh in MacDonagh Park. Donie Nealon was the man in the middle.
The game is interesting as it gives us a picture into how our club grounds have evolved over 39 years as well as how the game itself has changed with a much greater emphasis being placed on first time hurling.
The scoreboard brings back memories of having to collect the board with the participating clubs’ name on it from the late Paddy O’Donoghue from what is now the store room by the outer wall of the grounds and carry them all the way to the far end of the pitch and back up again afterwards. There’s also a flock of sheep behind the goals at that same end keeping the grass cut. Indeed, numerous clubs up and down the country used to borrow sheep to keep the grass down and it wasn’t uncommon to see jerseys covered in sheep droppings following a game.
The game was uploaded by the Borris-Ileigh club to their YouTube channel.
They have also uploaded a video from their county final win over Roscrea.
Nenagh Players Entertain Cudville
Alex Ley and his brother Brian have been entertaining their neighbours in Cudville recently and caught the attention of RTÉ reporter Cian McCormack. The talented musicians have been performing on the green in recent weeks, honing their musical talents while keeping the neighbours happy.
You can check out Cian’s RTÉ report here: https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2020/0428/1135400-tipperary-brothers-music/?fbclid=IwAR21W4L9qdosNCRd5eJ3AH7jg3lhLidnFPOqM-BswVyFjLE_FYV9oDilZ8A
Tipperary Footballers’ Charity Fundraiser
The Tipperary senior footballers and backroom team have been busy shaving their hair, growing moustaches or colouring their hair all in aid of North Tipperary Hospice, South Tipperary General Hospital and Community Suicide Awareness Workers. If you would like to donate to these worthy causes you can donate here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/tipp-tooball-fundraise
North Tipperary Best Jersey Vote
The Nenagh Guardian ran a vote over the last few weeks to determine who had the nicest jersey in North Tipperary and unfortunately we were defeated by eventual champions Newport in the semi-final. A big thank you to every who voted and well done to the purple and gold men from Newport.
Redemption
However we have a shot at redemption as the Guardian are now having a vote for the best camogie jersey in the county and in the preliminary round we are up against Gortnahoe Glengoole so click on the link below and vote early and vote often! Voting ends tomorrow afternoon.
1991 County Minor A Football Final
In 1991 Nenagh Éire Óg reached the county minor A football final as the reigning county champions and were looking to retain their crown when they faced Arravale Rovers. Unfortunately the West men won this encounter but were made fight all the way by the North men. Check out the video below which we uploaded to our YouTube channel this week. Our YouTube channel features numerous matches from over the years which is bound to keep you entertained during the current lockdown.
Willie Bolger shows he has retained his love for the ancient craft despite living in the land down under. Willie keeps a regular eye on our website and social media accounts to stay up-to-date with all the happenings in Nenagh Éire Óg.
Club Lotto
During the current Covid-19 crises our club lotto has been suspended however, you can still play online by clicking here.
