European Hurling/Camogie Tournament Report: Munich July 23 – Camogie off to a winning start!

The First round of the European Hurling/Camogie Championship kicked off in Munich this year which saw Belgium GAA bring 37 players mad for action. We fielded a total of one Camogie team and two Hurling teams that competed in an action-packed day. Our Camogie continued their good form by winning the competition outright with both men’s teams falling short.

12 Hurling teams competed on the day with Belgium ‘A’ (Schuman) and Belgium ‘B’ (Flagey) in search of some silverware. Belgium ‘B’ (Flagey) were drawn into a very difficult group losing out to Amsterdam/Augsburg, Munich, and Hamburg. All was not lost as this meant the lads had qualified for the plate semi-finals against Darmstadt/Strasbourg. A great performance by Flagey secured the win by beating Darmstadt/Strasbourg: 1-09 to 0-02. This meant that Flagey were up against Vienna in the plate final but lost out to them by 5 points. Belgium ‘A’ (Schuman) managed to win all of their group games and topped their group by beating Luxembourg ‘B’, Berlin GAA/Zurich, and Stuttgart. Schuman were drawn against a strong Amsterdam/Augsburg side which was a very exciting game with Belgium scoring a goal in the last couple of minutes to draw the match, but lost out after conceding two late points in the end. This meant Schuman were matched up against the host Munich in a 3^rd/4^th place playoff and won it at the end of a long day to take home the bronze.

For Camogie, the tournament was run on a round-robin format with Belgium only fielding one team with the new 9-aside format. The Camogie team managed to win all their games in the round robin defeating Hamburg/Setanta Berlin/Darmstadt, Luxembourg/Berlin GAA/Zurich, Vienna/Paris/Zurich, and Munich ( / indicates an amalgamation). By topping their group, they were matched against a strong Luxembourg side which they only managed to beat by two points in the group stages. This time around the Camogie team was stronger and won the final by four points. This was a great success for the club which has the camogie team a step closer to winning the European championship.

Daughter-Mother Duo of Sara and Lili Velazquez

Overall the day was a very enjoyable and well-run tournament by Munich, so congrats to them on that. It was great to see so many Belgium players make the journey to play small ball (and drink big pints). A great individual performance from Marcus Cosgrave saw him win the player of the tournament award. Marcus didn’t let man, ball, and hurl go by him in the full back line, so congrats to him and up the Rebels! Soline Whooley collected the trophy for the Camogie pointing out a great team performance. Next up we take the trip to Luxembourg (September 3), where the Hurlers will be looking to go further than last time and Camogie will be aiming to keep up their winning performance.