Our U12 footballers played there 1st official GAA championship games on a very wet bank holiday Monday last, June 3rd.

Rather unusually it was a 3 team blitz style competition to determine the cup and shield participants for the next round. Clane were placed in a Division 1 group with hosts Sarsfields and Maynooth.

Clane were drawn to play Sarsfields in the first match. The hosts were missing a few of their regulars while Clane were almost at full strength. Our buys put in a serious shift in the game and ran out well deserved winners in the end, playing some lovely football in the tough conditions.

With barely a few minutes break they were back out on the pitch against Maynooth who had been busy watching Clane's match v Sarsfields from the sidelines. These two teams have had many a close battle over the years since they started out with Go Games at U7. Maynooth are a strong team and the freshness showed as they were out of the traps early getting some lovely scores. This was their 1st game and our lads naturally enough seemed a big jaded after a tough game earlier v Sarsfields.

Nevertheless we did have a few goal chances which we failed to capitalise upon and were unlucky to be 6 points behind at the break. We changed things around in the 2nd half but nothing seemed to break our way in the tough conditions and in the end Maynooth ran out easy winners. We live to fight another day and the boys will have learned plenty from the experience.

We wait to find out what's next for the boys and whether they will be playing in the Cup or the shield in the next stage of the U12 championship.

Best of luck!!