County final weekend.

For anybody that has been following the journey, it's been a fun few months.

Making my hurling debut at 37 wasn't easy but it was fully worth it. I've lost weight, gotten some fitness back and made some great connections to my new area. All the benefit's of the GAA.

As our captain said, when this team was formed earlier in the year it was meant to be a social thing. A way to give people a space to do all these things and the older players a chance to get a few more years out of the sport.

The fact that we reached the final is just bonus territory. We were never meant to reach this far, we were never meant to be competitive.

As our defeated semi final opponents were heard saying,

" I can't believe we were beaten by a bunch of old men".

They still don't know how it happened and to be fair, we don't either. A well coached team full of 21 year old athletes being chased around the field by a bunch of old lads with beard and beer bellies.

We were chatting in the pub during the celebrations and calculated the average age of our starting team was 38.5 years old. And that was with our one 18 year old midfielder. The bench was even older.

You can't beat that dog though. They might be younger, fitter and faster but they didn't have that fight when it counted. That willingness to fight for every ball and to scrap for every play.

REf: Clare Echo

It showed in the end when we came at them.

Now we have the final on Saturday and it will be a fight again. A younger fitter team but with a higher standard of player again.

I probably won't get any minutes in this one since we have a full panel but you never know.

Either way the fun has been building all week. The flags and bunting are up in the village. The kids are all excited.

They are gathering timber for the victory bonfires if it happens. Either way we will have a hell of a night in the local pub on Saturday.

If we win it will be even better.

We've trained hard all summer and especially these last couple of weeks.

I don't think the other team can have done as much as we have done and can be willing to fight for it. This will probably be the last year of hurling for a lot of our players so they will want to go out on a high and with a trophy.

Roll on the weekend.

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