Shannon Notes Weekending September 5th 2009

The seniors began their competitive season last Saturday with a hard fought win over Thomond in the Charity cup. Any time we play the soda cakes at senior level we can always be guaranteed a difficult game, and last Saturday proved no different. Fresh from their superb Munster 7's success, Thomond played with confidence and showed in patches why they competed very well at the 7's game with their back three especially displaying some impressive ball work. From our perspective the 13-10 final score was satisfactory, but less so the performance. Only sporadically did we compete at the required level and the concession of needless turnovers compounded our difficulties. That said, looking back at most of our first competitive games over the last number of years we see a similar pattern to the games. We started slowly and never really injected sufficient pace to our game to threaten Thomond's line. The breeze did have a factor and Thomond took advantage of it in the first half and lead by 10-3 going into the break. Their well worked try was, from our point of view defensively poor with tackles missed throughout that passage of play. David O'Donovan landed an important penalty to get us on the board before the break but with the wind turning to our advantage we never really picked up the pace after the restart. Apart from the period when David Quinlan crashed over for his try did we seriously threaten Thomond’s line.
As it would be if we had won by 50 points, we won't read all that much into the game last Saturday and while it was a competitive game I think we can safely assume improvements will be made for next Saturdays Charity Cup fixture with Young Munster. Greenfield's is the venue for a 2.30 kick-off.
The U/21's and thirds play their opening games of the season on Saturday when they play Garryowen and Thomond respectively. Dooradoyle is the venue for the 21is with a 4pm start, while Woodview sees a 3pm kick-off for the thirds.

The underage training has already started and underage Chairman Vinnie Leonard and his committee begin the onerous task of registrations and membership collection on Sunday. We remind parents to bring the necessary documentation and fees when taking your children to Coonagh in the coming weeks. The various coaches will have further details. Whilst we are fortunate enough to have a sizable coaching contingent we are always looking for more coaches to get involved, especially experienced people. As we always say our underage is an ideal starting point for any former player that wants to head in the coaching direction and anyone interested please contact Vinnie on 086 8158873.
Two of our Underage sides are in action on Sunday. The U/17's play Richmond at 11 am and the U/19's play Thomond at 12pm. Both games are friendlies and take place in LIT.

The Club lotto has been humming away nicely over the summer months and continues to be a vital source for revenue for the club. The hardworking Lotto committee put in a big effort selling weekly tickets but still feel that there are plenty more avenues to pursue in order to raise the profile and the finances of the Lotto. The current €10,000 jackpot will no doubt be an added incentive to many, but we would encourage all members, supporters and parents of our underage players to help the club with a €2 lotto ticket each week. Direct debit systems and lump sum payments are all options open to people that want to contribute and John Leahy can be contacted for further details on 086 2562730.

Ticket packages for Mangers League and Heineken cup are still available from Tadgh Crowe with Category A selling for €380 and Category B at €330. These tickets cover all the Pool stage games and League stage fixtures in Thomond Park.

Sadly we mourn the death this week of Paddy O'Farrell who was a member of the great Munster junior cup winning sides of the late 30's. Paddy always kept a keen interest in the club and will be remembered by those that knew him as a gentleman and a great rugby player. We sympathise with his family and friends. May he rest in peace.