Back Row Standing left to right: Noel McLoughlin, Kevin Ludlow, Chris Farrell, Gerard Reynolds, Aaron O’Connor, Brendan Guckian, Conor McLoughlin, Donal Fox, Dan Reilly,
Front Row Kneeling left to right: Derek Cox, John Faughnan, Nigel Cox, Sean McNabola, Joe Cox, David Duignan, John Russell
As a result of our 2007 Junior A championship title win Annaduff GFC junior team were invited to play in the All Ireland Junior Football Sevens competition which was hosted by St. Jude’s GFC of Templeogue, Dublin on Saturday 20th September 2008. A management team of John Russell, Derek Cox, Donal Fox, Dan Reilly and Kevin Ludlow selected a panel of ten players (John Faughnan, Brendan Guckian, Conor McLoughlin, David Duignan, Joe Cox, Nigel Cox, Chris Farrell, Sean McNabola, Aaron O’Connor and Gerard Reynolds) and made arrangements to be in St Jude’s GFC at 10am on the morning of the 20th September.
On arriving we completed team registration and learned that we were in the group playing on pitch 3 in St Jude’s with Eire Og from Armagh, Tuam Stars of Galway, Lissan of Derry, Achill of Mayo (eventual competition winners) and St John Bosco of Down. Our first game started at 11:40am against St John Bosco’s and our last game started at 3pm against Lissan. We won two of our matches and narrowly lost the other 3 matches resulting in us being placed in joint third place in our group. This day turned out to be a very enjoyable and rewarding experience for everyone, who travelled to Dublin, which highlighted the fitness, skill and determination of our junior panel.
It is hoped & anticipated that we will be invited back by St Jude’s to this competition in September 09.
Thanks to:
1) All the players who gave up their Saturdays to represent Annaduff GFC with such distinction
2) The management team who looked after the panel of players on the day.
3) Enda O’Brien of <a href=”http://www.robeplan.com/index.html”>Robeplan</a> who generously sponsored a set of polo shirts for the Junior panel
