A Chara,

We have had a shocking few days of weather over the weekend but thankfully we had 2 great wins on the playing fields over the last number of days. Our Camogie team had a fantastic victory over Sarsfields on Friday night in Castle Road. Aoife Healy, Ali Smith, Abigail Ring, Amanda Bennett, Sarah Walsh and May Collins all playing their heart out on the day along with all of their teammates. It was a real joy to be in Castle Road watching our camogie team on culture night and even better to leave the venue after witnessing a fabulous hour of camogie from our girls! There were some brilliant scores right across the pitch but the way the girls worked the ball up the pitch was a joy to behold. The backs were teak tough and Sars got no easy scores. On the flip side, our forwards gave a super display of quality finishing and ruthlessness where we finished with seven goals on the scoreboard… yes SEVEN. Well done to all the players, Donie Morrissey and his management team. The team now face Ballinora in the Junior A County Semi Final next weekend. Time and date TBC during the week. This is a massive achievement for our girls to reach the Junior A Semi Final in their first year in the grade after landing the Junior B title last year. When the girls face Ballinora they will be the underdogs, but this team have been playing some great camogie all year so will be in with a great chance of reaching the final. Please make every effort to support the team next weekend.

On Sunday, our Ladies Football team were in championship action against last years Intermediate champions Castlehaven. Whoever won this game would face Éire Óg in the Semi Final of the county. Conditions for the game were shocking and Castlehaven chose to face the wind in the first half. This meant that Aghada had a gale force breeze at their backs in the opening period and boy did our girls make use of this advantage. From minute one our girls were a joy to watch, and their ball handling and retention was excellent especially considering the treacherous conditions. The ball hardly left the Haven half with our girls ensuring they did ultimate damage on the scoreboard before they had to face into the wind themselves. Score of the half came from one of Aghada’s top performers on the day, Hannah Looney. She may be better known for rowing the O’Duffy Cup down the Lee as of late but when she picked up the O'Neill's football on the halfway line she let rip with a boomer of a shot towards the forward line. Incredibly, the ball bounced just before the goal and flew over the crossbar! The only pity was it wasn't captured on video due to the conditions. Aghada had played exceptional and thanks to great scores from Clare Walsh and Emma Farmer along with the afore mentioned Looney, our girls led 2-11 to no score at the break. The question was though, would that be enough to get us over the line in the second period. I know you might say that’s a strange question to ask but the wind was so strong in Rostellan that people were actually asking that question to themselves. We didn’t need to worry though as our girls in green were as good in the second half against the wind as they were with the wind, if not better! They gave a great display of composure on the ball and eventually worked a brilliant team goal to kill the game off. Final score on the day was 4-14 to 0-01. Best on the day for Aghada were Katie O’Farrell, Hannah Looney, Sally McAllister, Clare Walsh and Kaitlin Smith but in truth you could pick every Aghada girl out as they gave a top-class performance right across the pitch. Well done to all the players, Eric Smith and his management team. The team now face Eire Og in the Senior County Semi Final next week. Time and Date TBC.

Relay For Life:

Well done to everyone from the club who took part in the Relay for Life event in Midleton CBS a few weeks ago. There was a great buzz and excitement in the CBS grounds over the 24 hours. Well done to Elaine Counihan, Anne Marie McAllister, Áine Cronin, Saundra Walsh and coordinator Gillian Murphy who organised Aghada GAA’s involvement in the event. Special mention to Gillian Murphy who coordinated all of the fundraising activities and made sure we had someone walking for every hour of the event. Well done to her husband and club secretary John who volunteered her for the role (I’m sure he asked you first Gill!!!). On top of walking at the event, the women managed to raise €1330 in aid of the Cancer Society which the Relay of Life event is ran in support of. Absolutely brilliant work from all involved and well done to all our club walkers on the day who got plenty of miles into their legs!

Mentors 2024:

Last Sunday a last-minute goal from Aidan O'Connell ensured a great win over Lisgoold in the Junior B hurling relegation playoff, and we now need one result to go our way from the last 2 fixtures in this round robin to survive in JB championship. Well done to all the lads involved here and to Willie Wallis, Mark White, Ger Lynch, Alan Walsh and Paul Walsh who put a great effort into making sure the lads were prepared all year. It was a joy to see our lads throw the shackles off against Lisgoold and play some fantastic hurling across the hour. Aidan O’Connell was supreme in his centre forward role; John Walsh was excellent and composed between the sticks with Fionn O’Connell and Dan Leahy powering forward with a pile of ball that supplied our forwards with great ammunition to drive at the Lisgoold goal. Conor O’Keeffe, Seán Óg O’Keeffe, and John Connolly converted a lot of this ammunition into scores. Of course, a good forward line needs to be ably assisted by their backs and young guns like Conor Geary, Pete White and Cian Hegarty certainly stood firm when it counted. Other than our B hurlers however, our men’s adult’s team’s year have come to an abrupt end over the last fortnight. Huge thanks to all our managers, mentors, backroom teams etc. for their fantastic commitment and dedication to our teams in 2023. It is never an easy task to take on a team and it’s safe to say all our mentors put in mighty long shifts across the year to make sure our teams were prepared heading into battle. Hopefully some mentors will continue on for 2024, while others have already indicated they are going to step away for a well-deserved break.

So .... we will have plenty of vacancies for anyone out there that wants to get involved with an adult team group next year. Just let club secretary John Murphy know ASAP. Don’t say you weren’t asked!!!

Coaching Day:

Two weekends ago, our club held a hurling coaching morning which was attended by a large number of club members down in Rostellan. The event was fantastic and whether you coach hurling, football, camogie or ladies’ football there was certainly learning for all. We were treated to an exhibition of hurling coaching from Cork Senior Hurling coach Donal O’Rourke. Along with that, Cork Hurlers Declan Dalton and Ciarán Joyce gave our young stars of the future tips on how they can improve their game. Declan Dalton showed our young hurlers how to take frees and sidelines while Ciarán Joyce spoke about how important defending is and also shared some top secrets on how to come out on top on the fella you are marking in a game. It’s safe to say the young lads will remember the day for a long time but the learning our coaches will get from the day will be the most important asset from the day moving forward. Thanks to Fergal Condon and John Connolly who were key in organising the day along with our coaching committee led by Eoin O’Neill.

Aghada GAA Free Grinds:

It’s that time of year again where all the children are back at school and about now, plenty of boys and girls are starting to have exams in secondary school. Last year, we offered some free grinds/study help to club members who were completing their Leaving/Junior Cert in many different subjects including Mathematics, English, Irish, Business etc. Some of the teenagers who availed of these grinds said they liked coming down to club to do a bit more study as they felt very comfortable and relaxed in the environment along with having a club connection with the people providing the tuition. This year we are hoping to run the initiative again which would be a great help to our young male and female players. Of course, this won’t be possible without some help from the teachers of our parish! We managed it well last year with students offered 21 different grinds for free over the school year. You won’t be required to give up too much time, probably one or two hours over the course of the year. If you feel you can help out in ANY way, please contact Vince on 085 1938088. Thanks in advance!

Séan Kenny Blitz:

Our G4M&O’s team are organising a fundraising blitz on the 7th of October in aid of clubman Séan Kenny. As many of you will know already, Séan is the father of 3 young children who is currently undergoing treatment for stage 4 prostate cancer. Séan has been a very active member of the Aghada GAA community over the last number of years along with his wife Bríd who may of you will know from the fantastic volunteer work she does with the underage ladies footballers. The blitz on the 7th of October promises to have something for everyone in the family. There will be plenty of football taking place on the pitches, a cake sale, face painting, music, a raffle along with a MC on the day. Of course there will be plenty of craic too!!! If you can, please call down and support on the day. The event starts at 1:30pm and the day promises to be full of fun for all. Please consider supporting Séan and his family at the following Go Fund Me Link attached: https://www.gofundme.com/f/walk-in-sean-kennys-shoes?utm_campaign=p_cp+share-sheet&utm_medium=copy_link_all&utm_source=customer

More information attached in this flyer attached.

Updates from the Chairperson:

Finally, this week, Club Chairperson Anthony Connolly has some updates on recent work carried out on the club grounds in Rostellan for the membership to be made aware of. It’s safe to say there has been a lot done over the last few months! Read Anthony’s updates below:

• We are currently carrying out upgrades to ball wall so we can install a new 4G surface.  Please bear with us here it will take a number of weeks before this space will be available again. Big thanks to all the volunteers that are bringing their skills and giving their time on this project. John Connolly , Nigel Condon, Tony Wall, David Hartnett, Mikey O’Driscoll, Pauric Logue, Damien Mc Cabe, Steven Flaherty and John Morrissey 
• Our viewing area is taking shape.  Big thanks to Pearse O'Neill, Kevin Alcock, Kevin Hegarty & Phil Rohan on this project.
• You might have seen we have invested in new signage around the grounds to highlight closing times and Dogs on leads!! etc.  Please help in making people aware of our Policy around dogs in our grounds while dogs on leads has improved, there are still a number of walkers ignoring our signage. 
• Thanks to Ronan Sheehan for repairing our generator exhaust stack.
• The Bank running adjacent the running track and under the viewing area has been levelled and grassed over the last few weeks which has cleaned up this area. Big thanks to Kevin Alcock, Pat O’Brien, Pat OConnell, Johnty and Phil Rohan .
• Thanks to the Scouts for gifting a 20-foot container to us and East Cork Crane Hire for transporting and lifting into place.
• You might of seen new sponsorship signage going up inside our middle pitch. Massive thank you to Pa O’Connor, Conor Counihan and John O Neill who have managed to add 25+ signs.  Please contact any of the above names if you wish to have a sponsor sign located on our grounds, this will be at a very reasonable price !🙂
• While it is one job in getting sponsorship in, it is another job to erect and install the extra signage. Thanks to Phil Rohan, Kevin Hegarty, Donagh Collins, Pearse O Neill, PJ Hurley, John Murphy, John Morrissey and Donal Godfrey.
• During summer while we extended or walking track around the middle pitch and resurfaced the adjacent track, we also installed over 200 meters of ducting and water pipe to our training area this will give us the option to light up our training area and facilitate lighting up our walking track in time. A number of 6am starts over the long weekends during the summer months were given to get these works carried out. Big Thanks to Kevin Alcock, Dan Callanan, Phil Rohan. Also, all machinery has been supplied free of charge to the club thanks to Glan Agua. 

While works are still ongoing and never ending around our grounds, I would like to express my sincere thanks to all club volunteers who give their time in whatever capacity to facilitate improvements and maintenance to our fabulous Pairc Liam Ui Riain across 2023.

Regards,

Anthony Connolly 

Ár nDícheall Go Deo

Well, it’s clear from Anthony’s piece above that there has been monstrous work carried out on our grounds over the last number of months. Anthony thanked a lot of people who gave up their time which is what the GAA and community is all about but forgot to thank one man, HIMSELF! Anthony was involved in nearly every single project that he has listed above and more across the Summer so well done to him for his dedication and will power to get everything completed before the winter arrives. Please see photos of the jobs completed below.

That’s it for this week’s news. Please make sure you read the segment on the upcoming blitz in aid of Seán Kenny and please support if you can.

Make sure to keep a close eye on social media over the next few days for updated fixture details on both our Camogie and Ladies Football teams respective County Semi Finals. They promise to be cracking fixtures.

Slán,

Uinsíonn Ó Ruacháin

Oifigeach Caidreamh Poiblí

Vince Rohan - PRO  

Aghada GAA, Camogie & Ladies Football Club 

Ár nDícheall Go Deo

Website for most up to date fixtures news and results -http://www.aghadagaa.com/