Busy day at the office for our under-age teams.

Much of the valuable work carried out by GAA clubs for the greater good takes place behind the scenes without any fanfare. Saturday was  typical of such a day for Mullingar Shamrocks with several under-age squads active making it a very busy day for coaches, mentors and parents.

Lakepoint Park formed an impressive site on Saturday morning as it was covered in green, blue, and black and amber as the Under-6 footballers of Mullingar Shamrocks, St Loman's and The Downs gathered to play in a Go Games Blitz. Great fun was the order of the day as the young boys and girls played in the young people's version of Gaelic football .... referees had great trouble implementing the 4 steps rule!!!

Rochfortbridge was the venue for our Under-8s where the home club hosted a great event. Great football on display, tackling, passing, kicking etc in our two matches against St Mary's and Coralstown-Kinnegad. Also special appreciation to the St Mary’s club on providing a very well organised blitz together with a huge selection of buns, cakes, crisps, biscuits etc. afterwards.

Our Under 10 Squad travelled to St. Colmcille’s, Bettystown for a Tournament which kicked-off at 10.30am with a parade and the National Anthem to add to the sense of occasion. Mullingar Shamrocks were included in a group with St Mary’s, Donore (Meath), Naas and Round Towers and with two wins and a loss to Naas we qualified for the Shield competition. In the semi-final, we beat St Colmcille’s III team and in the final match Shamrocks were far too strong for Eadestown.

Our men in Bettystown were: James Ryan, Paul Keating, Charlie Foy, Ronan Byrne, Criostóir Ormsby, Ben McNamee, James Flynn, Ben Sheerin, Tye Masterson, Paraic Casey and Ted Aherne. Barry Maguire and Ollie Keating were the coaches on this occasion.  

 On Saturday evening our Under-12 Squad travelled to Coralstown-Kinnegad where they were beaten by the minimum margin by the home side in a rescheduled league match and our under-14 team completed the busy club day in Tyrrellspass where they played their final game in the Group Stages of the Under-14 Championship. The trip was a losing one as Tyrrellspass proved to be far too strong for our young team (8-12 to 1-8).