Day 10 of the "Christ, goon gives you a bad hangover" Tour 2012

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Sunday morning like so many before them we a groggy affair! 12 o’ clock it was when I awoke and when I asked Colman the time I couldn’t believe it. We had planned to go fishing that morning and then go to a local AFL match. Fishing was defiantly out the window as the reserves kicked of a 12 and the first team at 2. So by the time we had showered and had the breakfast it was after 2 before we got to the “footy” ground. We found a spot to sit in the “stand” (you’ll see photos of it so you’ll understand the inverted commas) and realized that the reserves hadn’t yet finished, great, we’d see the whole thing. The clubs that were playing were Royals and Railways and apparently this was akin to Kilbrittain and Newcestown playing. It promised to be a fiery affair especially as the two clubs grounds were directly across the road from each other, I mean, you’d easily puck a sliotar from one to the other like!

Railways got off to the better start and lead by 2 goals at ¼ time and 4 gaols at ½ time. As the buzzer went for ½ time there had been no schmozzel yet, there’s still the second half, they’ll surely get into each other in the second half we thought.

What else would we do at half time only wander into the clubhouse for a “cure”. Imagine our surprise when we learnt that it was ladies day! All the WAGs were inside dancing to “Sweet Caroline”. Pity the locals were keeping a close eye on us or else we would have been up there dancing as well. For a finished we only got talking to two people. The first was the man that has the caravan across from where our tent is and it was from him we learned of the match, the other was a young fellow in his mid to late 30s who was a right weirdo altogether. He kept saying to us that we were great because we were Irish and it was like we were celebrities in his eyes! I think he may have had a bit of a thing for Cole but Cole reckons that there was just a bit of a want in him! Needless to say we downed the rest of the bottle and returned outside first the 2^nd half.

Railways continued their dominance in the 3^rd quarter and the 1^st half of the 4^th quarter but Royals did stage somewhat of a comeback in the last eight of the contest. They had it back to 2 goals with 5 minutes to play and we thought we were sure for fireworks now, but as the game drew to a close, no, nothing, not a foul stroke in the entirety of the match. In all fairness the Aussie’s have gotten something right in their game, every time the refs make a call the ball in handed directly to the man who’s to take the kick and not one word is said to the refs throughout the match! Maybe we could take something from this in the GAA or maybe, bad decisions and all that is half the fun! I dunno!

Another thing worth noting was that Railways played in Kilbrittain’s colours and that the holy water from Clonbogue in the car might just have helped the Black & Ambers across the line.

We thought about going for another drink after the match but remembering the beauty we’d met earlier said we’d leave it off! We made our way home and went for bed early so that we wouldn’t have a disastrous start to Monday like we did to Sunday!

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