In September a few of our Senior Men teamed up with Midland GAC and Darmstadt to compete in the 2nd Round Pan European Hurling Tournament in Leuven, Belgium. The lads played solidly despite facing some really tough opponents – check out the match report from Midland GAC’s Daniel Sutter below…
Myself, along with Ian Matthews and Alan Buckley from Basel GAA joined Darmstadt, a German university team, to compete at the 2nd Round Pan European Hurling Tournament in Leuven, Belgium. As the only team with just one Irish lad, it was a tough day of games, but a great experience nonetheless! We lost big against Belgium A (one of the best two continental European teams), clearly against Maastricht/Den Haag but only by three points against Belgium B.
Ian did solid work in defence and held his ground even against guys that were way more experienced, displaying great fighting spirit and endurance. Alan was our playmaker and scored countless points from every position and by consistently provoking and cashing in on frees. Naturally he was a target for the Belgium defence who battered him up in the first game, adding to his chronic battle with foot injuries in his youth that took him out of Corks intercounty hurling. But he soldiered on, at some point giving me a perfect pass that lead to a goal and generously let me take a 65 which unluckily, I severely underhit!
After we were through, Alan and I went on to help out Paris for one and two games respectively, with one win in the semi and then a clear loss in the shield final. The reffing was excellent and Belgium A vs Luxembourg was a classic final that went into overtime with a tie goal in a heated match where Luxembourg came out as the winner.
All-in-all, a high-octane day, some great on-pitch experience, and a fun road trip!
Basel GAA 