www.balbrigganrfc.com

Oct 2004 Issue 1

NEW SEASON.
The new season has well and truly started and glad to say the Club has been fielding at all levels from adult through to U8 each weekend. The new addition to our line up have been the U20s which is a joint venture with Boyne and have named themselves the Colts. At present Balbriggan are providing the majority of the team and the players have acquitted themselves well in moving up from youths to adult level. They won the recent 10 a side blitz in Navan and also recently beat Malahide. They hope to get a few more matches under their belts before the Harry Gale Cup begins.

The U18s won the North East 10 a side and progressed to the Leinster play offs in Carlow where after winning their opening match against Greystones lost the remaining two games in their pool. Well done to them for progressing so far.

U14 was the one area where we had a bit of a gap with the majority of last years players moving up to U16 however coaches Dave Verdon and Martin Mahon have put together a squad that has shown that it had good potential. They won a close fought match with Ardee at the weekend 12 – 10.

The Adult side has not had the best start to a season and are still looking for their first win. However there is great spirit in the side and hopefully it will all come together soon. They have not managed to put out the same side on any weekend which has not helped the team settle down, they were also unfortunate to loose their coach Paddy Connolly with a broken leg in their first match. Best wishes to Paddy for a speedy recovery.

While we are fielding teams at all levels some of our squads are a little thin on numbers so if you know anyone from 7 up to 30+ who is interested in playing please send them along.

Getting in right at the start leads to players having the right skills all through their playing career. We want to ensure therefore that we give them these skills so particularly we need coaching help at the U8 & U10 age groups – if you can give some time please help.

We also need assistance with refereeing youth’s matches. It should not be left to the teams coaches to have to ref as well so again all volunteers welcome.

Support for all teams is also welcome and appreciated by the players. The adults first Leinster League Home match is Sunday 31 Oct at 2.30pm in Ring Commons against Birr. Be there and ensure they get the support they need.

For the times of matches and training please check our website www.Balbrigganrfc.com.

International Tickets
As we noted the allocation of tickets will take into account your participation in the Club during the season – you have been warned. Also please note that the IRFU are selling tickets for the USA match on 20 November as doubles with the English match. So if you don’t go to the USA match you will still have to buy your ticket!!
Tickets for the Autumn Internationals will be available from Gerry Hennigan on 9th November. Tickets for all three matches will be distributed on the one night.

Sponsorship
We would like to thank Mike Ruding of M.L.K. Restaurants Ltd who has entered a sponsorship arrangement for the U8s & U12 for two seasons. MLK are better known as the McDonalds franchises in Navan & Drogheda so if you fancy a McDonalds you know where to go.

Project Phoenix.
As noted at the AGM the site is being allowed to settle. The sub committee have been working hard on putting together a proposal for the development of the site and we would certainly hope that we will be in a position to put that proposal to members before the year end. A lot of work is being put into this proposal and we want to ensure that we get it right.

Fund Raising – Did you miss Joe!!
If you were at the AGM you will have heard that it costs in the region of €75,000 to run the Club, money we have to raise from somewhere. Our first effort was the Joe Dolan concert in conjunction with the North County Cricket Club and the Chamber of Commerce. Did you win your bonus ticket points by attending or selling tickets! It was a great night and the venue was excellent for an event like that. However our report card “would say could do better”. We have over adult 100 members and 100 youths but between us we fell well short of selling our 200 tickets. In fact 5 people sold more tickets than the rest combined. At an event like this it is the tickets sold after you break even that make the real money. The Rugby Club lost out on €3,000 by not selling our quota. The bottom line is that as a result we will have to cut back on expenditure somewhere which is not something we want or in a playing sense can afford to do but money does not grow on trees.

Whatever the next fund raising event please ensure that you give it adequate support.

Jamie Hagan
If you have not already heard Jamie has made the No3 jersey on the Leinster youths his own this season. Leinster won the Youth’s inter provincial and hopefully Jamie will go on to make the Irish Squad.

Jamie recently won the Balbriggan Town Council’s Sports Star of the year award in recognition of his achievement. Jamie is the first person playing with Balbriggan to attain a Leinster cap. Previously Shane McAleer and Declan Quinn achieved that honour while playing with Boyne.

Jamie has set the target so who will be next!!