Victory In Youghal.

A while back (see  'to Oliver' post) I described how my son won a place on his college rugby team. Well, on Wednesday afternoon in front of a crowd of over a hundred, which included both sets of his Grandparents he and his team eclipsed even their wildest dreams.
Youghal Rugby football pitch sits on top of a hill that overlooks an ancient walled Harbor town, once owned by Sir Walter Raleigh, and has views onto the Mountains that I have spent a lot of time on recently putting out fires. The occasion, The Munster College Final, the teams, Midleton JCT's V Newtown, Weather bright, pitch soft.
Before the whistle both teams formed a huddle as the two captains fired up their respective men, then in silence each man took up his position, faces bristling with anticipation, and the eagerness of youth. The whistle was met by a wall of noise from the Midleton supporters, and the battle was on.

The first five minutes saw Newtown test the Midleton defence, as wave after wave of attacks were seen off in scenes reminiscent of the Spartans at Thermopylia. Then out of nowhere Midleton made a break down the right hand side, the forwards rucked and mauled in perfect unison, each man picking up the ball and driving on, then came the mistake! The Newtown number eight put his hands on the ball whilst off his feet, Penalty!!! Up stepped the Midleton captain and number ten, and with a sweet right foot put the ball over the bar from thirty-five yards, 3-0 Midleton. All over the pitch each man had his own battle with his opposite number, Oliver was no different. As Midleton's open side flanker (No.7) it was his job to carry the ball into contact and set up a maul, it was whilst doing so that his opposite number decided to give him some extra treatment, in the form of an elbow to the face. His nose took the impact and blood freely began to fall. In rugby if you have a blood injury you must go off! Until it is stemmed. Oliver with clever use of his second rows shirt and shorts in the Scrum managed to hide the blood from the Ref, and when the perpetrator of the crime reported it to the ref, there was no blood freely running so he was able to stay on. 

Five minutes later saw the same man with the ball running at Oliver, and in front of the partisan Midleton crowd saw Oliver make a tackle that completely upended his man, that won the applause of his peers, and of his Headmaster in the crowd, but more importantly won the ball for his team. Off this tackle the ball was fed out to the Midleton back line that went wide to the right, then as the Newtown defence were massing on that side saw an inside pass back onto the left hand side and into the gap that had been created by Oliver's tackle. That was all that was needed for the smallest man on the pitch, Midleton's wing, who had bright yellow boots. These boots hid the fact that he really had golden feet, for he is the quickest fifteen year old I have ever seen. His speed caught the Newtown boys napping and with two minuets to go in the first half he scored the games only try. 8-0 Midleton, The number ten then made this10-0 as he converted from twenty-two yards.

The second half started much the same, but the Newton boys were on a mission! They rampaged across the pitch and broke through the Midleton lines on numerous occasions. After wave after wave the Midleton defence finally broke down and gave away a penalty in front of the posts, and the Newtown Number ten stepped up and slotted the ball over the bar, 10-3. The Midleton boys answered the call of the crowd and rallied around, the forwards once again controlling the ball at the breakdown. The Midleton full back controlled the ball from behind catching high ball after high ball, and sending it back down the pitch with interest, and great accuracy. The Newtown boys were beginning to panic, and as another Midleton break went down the right they committed another penalty, and again the number ten in Midleton blue and black sent the ball over the post, 13-3. the game went on and as the minutes ticked by hundreds of voices began to count down the seconds, then as the ball was won off the back of the scrum by the scrum half, he saw the ref look at his watch and promptly kicked the ball out, game over! THEN!

Came the pitch invasion, the players had no chance of escape from the hoards of excited Midleton pupils and staff as they were swamped. Oliver's hand can be seen raised triumphantly, finger pointing sky ward. Thirty-two years is a long time to wait for any College to bring a title back, especially a college that prides itself on its Rugby.

As with any final, there has to be a loosing team, the Newtown team had put up a good fight, but were beaten for pace and fitness in the end, and the better team won. For the players who took part this will be a day they will never forget.  For the people who watched, we will never forget either.

Even Mum gets a hug!

That winning feeling!

Oliver bloodied' but happy with Jackies parents who came from England to watch.

The team! and happy Coach.

The spell is broken.

The cold dry spell has finally been broken. The Irish spring has arrived. For the last couple of weeks we have had more Mountain fires than I would care to remember and last night it began to rain which should bring them to an end. This has been a hard season, three of the crew got burnt, me included! Not serious burns rather more like loosing your eye lashes and eye brows and a bit of fringe, with some superficial reddening of the skin, or the odd blister.

I suppose the toll is harder on the families. Take mine for example. It got to be a station joke that whenever my wife cooked a roast dinner that we would be called out just as I sat down to eat it, this had a knock-on effect of her wanting to sit down and enjoy a nice dinner together so she would cook another one on another day! Same thing! Six times this happened. So when it came to her birthday meal which my son was home from school for with his girlfriend visiting, I decided not to let Jackie cook just incase, and ordered a nice Chinese,  only to have the lovely beef in Black bean sauce put onto my plate and with my taste buds exploding with anticipation took the first mouthful. Thats all I got to have of that, and it's not good for your digestive system if you eat it cold for breakfast!

Each years mountain fire season however refreshes my memory banks with renewed enthusiasm for the mountains at night. There is something that touches me deep inside, the silence, the vast skies, the stars. At night after the light of the fire is out and you sit and rest on a tuft of Un-burnt heather your senses somehow become even more aware of the landscape around you and the different effects of moonlight and shadow. Sound in the absence of light seems to become more amplified, and above the smell of ash you can catch the perfume of the small pink flowers of the heather. Over the years I have been the pathfinder on the mountains to our crew, quite a lot of responsibility! They will follow me down the mountain back to the road or track where the engine was left, or where we can get it to pick us up from. I do this by night vision only, no torches! I have tried to explain about the rods and cones that make up the shapes of the light sensitive end of the human eye but it tends to fall on deaf ears.
The tracks that wild animals make have been laid down over hundreds of years, and if you know what to look for you can see them light the way for you. On one occasion it was a full moon that lit the way on a cold cloudless night, and the light shone silver on the surface of the tiny spring that I was following, and the moon shadows fell magically over dead land or depressions which we stayed clear of. If you relied on torches all this magic would disappear in a man made orange glow, the kind that hides the stars over every town and city even on the clearest nights. You would become reliant on this glow rather than your senses. You would miss out on the feel of the changing geology under foot, the different textures of the bog, the subtle hollow ways through the waist high heather made by generations of sheep, the wool of which shines out like cats eyes snagged on branches, not a golden fleece, but moon silver.

So I bid farewell to my beloved mountains, even if it's a temporary one. The next time we will be up it will be usually to the sad sight of sheep with lambs that have been caught out by the flames of careless campers or pick-knickers with portable barbecue's, or to the drastic cry of the Hen harriers as they circle over head as the flames and smoke engulf their nesting site. In a way I hope that it remains wet for the spring to enable the wild life to recover from the ravages of man, and for us to recover from the exertion of this years busy mountain season.

Trials, Tribulations, and car crashes!

You're trying to imagine the scene that will greet you as you speed along the road to the crash. The first signs suddenly light up in the headlights as they reflect back through the fog, some debris and a bit of wall, some glass, oddly a single shoe, and then the long black line of rubber that terminates at the twisted reck of the car. A person is walking around as if in a dream, small splashes of blood already drying to a crust, speckle his aspirin white face, and he is preoccupied looking for his iphone. Beyond him you can here the screams of people in pain, and other people in shock trying to pull their friend, their brother, their sister,mother, father, son, or daughter, out of the wreckage, not realizing the dangers of spinal injury. What looks like an old sack lies on the road at odd angles with hardly any identifying features save for one hand that lies almost severed in the near perfect round of body fluid. In one of the cars you can see a young man slumped over the steering wheel, his ears are blue, in the other car a young girl is screaming in pain her legs are trapped by the dashboard of the car that has crushed around them and pinned them in, her four year old son lies motionless and quiet, still strapped into his baby seat in the back.
You are in charge of a team of five men, what do you do first?

This is a scenario that fire brigades all round the world sadly have to deal with every day. As more cars are on the roads the number of accidents are on the increase every year. To try and combat the number of deaths that happen to people who become trapped in their vehicles, or suffer serious spinal injury resulting in full paralysis by either improper extrication procedure, or good willed help by the public. The fire brigades of the western world formed an organization dedicated to the standardization of best practice training around the globe in Extrication. Each year the participating countries hold a national team challenge day, where each brigade put forward their best team of five who then compete against each other. The challenge is on two timed scenario's, firstly a twenty minute challenge, one responsive casualty, with spinal injury, the second, a ten minute rapid extraction of an unresponsive, time critical casualty. Each of these are carried out and are assessed by three world assessors who are experts in the three main areas, Medical, Technical, and Leadership. The best three teams then go forward to represent their country in the World Championships, this year the Worlds are being hosted by Cork City here in Ireland. This weekend I took part representing my County.I have been the Waterford County team medic for three years now and managed to compete in one World Championship two years ago. Our team this year was made up of two new recruits to help them gain some valuable experience in RTC (Road Traffic Collision) training that they might not get otherwise, consequently we are not expecting a top three placing this year, but you never know!

I'm not the blonde!