On Wednesday evening we played Kilbeggan-St Joseph's in the Westmeath Minor Football Championship with Mullingar Shamrocks lining out the following team: Seán Hynes; Peter Bane, Brian Reidy, Matthew Siode; Mark Flynn (Daniel Chukwuemeka), Marc Eivers [0-3],Cormac Darby (Brandon Heffernan); Dillon Matthews [0-1] (Rory O'Sullivan Sexton) & Jack Kelly (Emmet Walsh); Adam McCormack, Cormac Hynes [0-3] (Peter Hynes), John O'Reilly [1-0]; Pádraic McKenna [3-4], Jack Gillen [1-2]. Matthew Maslin [0-5] (Zach Aherne).

Four years ago Mullingar Shamrocks won the Under-14 county title beating Athlone 2-4 to 1-6 with a last minute penalty goal scored by Sean Mahon in the final.

Our team  on that occasion was: Dillon Matthews; Cian Fox, Pádraic McKenna, John Whitelaw; Cormac Darby, Jack Fitzpatrick, Jack Kelly; Dylan Murphy and Trevor Keena; Brandon Heffernan, Seán Mahon (1-1), Cormac Hynes (0-2); Matthew Maslin (1-1), Luke Carton and Marc Eivers.

At a time when player drop-out is a topic that concerns all sports it is interesting to note that 8 players who played in the Under-14 final were on duty four years later with Trevor Keena an absentee due to illness.