Here is a report by Niall Kearney on how the county U14 & U16 Development Squads fared when they travelled south at the weekend. As you probably already know from earlier posts, Ruairí Óg CLG had representatives on both squads and indeed coaches working with both sets of players.
Just a quick update on the Development squads progress at the National Tournaments in Waterford and Tipperary at the weekend. Undoubtedly the performance of the u14 team in Div 1 of the Tony Forristal was the weekends highlight. The boys beat both Laois and Wexford to win their group a firstfor Antrim (to my Knowledge) only to fall to Clare in the Semi. The boys and management gained a lot of new supporters due to their exciting brand of hurling.
The u16s despite the expectation, didn't preform to their best and fell in all 3 three games against Laois by 5, Galway by 3 and both matches we could have and should have won. In the other match we lost by 12 to the Tournament winners Tipp.
But their is no doubt in Head Coach Dominic Mc Kinley's and my mind that the development squads had a fantastic experience at the weekend and it was money well spent, which if repeated more often during the season, then these results won't been seen as shocks anymore but steady progression to being competitive every time we cross the border.