As a new season dawned Starlights Senior Footballers took on Clongeen at Bellefield on Saturday last in the first round of the All County Leagues and after a good opening performance went down to the visitors by 4 points. Not bad considering it always takes the Stars a game or two to lose that winter sluggishness and spring into a new campaign but despite losing on Saturday they looked promising in attach and seemed to hit the ground running for a change. Some of that might be put down to new management as one of this years Selector turned up suited on the sideline – either an effort to emulate Alex Ferguson or just taking time out from his daughters Confirmation! Best for the Stars was Eamonn Furlong fielding well and going forward.
Our Junior Footballers were not to fare any better on Sunday at home against Gusserane as they were beaten 2.8 to 1.6 in what was a very close encounter up to the final 10 minutes when Starlights ran out of steam.
Our Juveniles played and drew their first game of the Leinster League at home on Saturday as they hosted Eire Og of Castlecomer. Our Charges accquitted themselves well against the Kilkenny opposition and indeed 10 minutes into the second period seemed to be cruising following goals from Kevin Foley and Paddy Hore and Liam Ryan completely dominating at centre back. However, a gap seemed to emerge as players were substituted giving Castlecomer the advantage they needed to knock over a string of points without reply and with only minutes remaining their goal came leaving the final score 3.8 to 1.14…………. A draw. Next week we take on another Kilkenny team in this campaign as we play Freshford in Freshford on Saturday. The very best of luck lads this is an excellent competition and a chance to test our mettle and assess our standard against other counties – the only way forward.
We had a surprise visitor to the Club on Sunday last as former Government Minister and MEP Charlie McCreevy accompanied the U/21 Kildare Football team on a recognisance mission to Bellefield prior to their clash with Wexford this Wednesday night at 7.30pm. Charlie it seems is Advisor to the Kildare team …………….. Talk about going back to your roots!
We are once again looking forward to seeing another U/21 win at Bellefield this week and we would like to take this opportunity to wish team and management the very best of luck from all at Rapparees/Starlights and we would like to apologise for any inconvenience this encounter may cause to our weekly Bingo players. We will ensure that we have sufficient manpower on the night to minimise disruption.