China Games - Shanghai 09

Mikey Farrelly
Fri 11 Sep 2009

The latest Wolfhounds adventure in Asian GAA took place in June 2009 in sunny Shanghai. For once we received a favourable draw and managed to avoid Hong Kong and Shanghai. We were pitted against Beijing B, Shanghai B and Shenzhen. We accounted for Beijing B in our first game relatively comfortably. We then had a great struggle against our old friends Shenzhen. Their midfield powerhouse - Greg - had to be contained by hook or by crook and no better man than Levi to do it by crook. In the end we won quite comfortably. The Wolfhounds gave a smashing performance against Shanghai B in our last group game, moving the ball around very well and taking some excellent scores. So three wins out of three and spirits were high.

That left us top of our group and ready for the semis. There awaiting us were our old nemesis Shanghai. Once again they managed to put one over on us. They marked tight and we never really got going. In the end we were well beaten. In the end Hong Kong triumphed overall, beating Shanghai in the final.

So all in all a good tournament for the Wolfhounds. Special mention to Steve Hashim who traveled from Kunming to play with us, Andy Joseph who traveled from Seoul and Fran Kevlihan who traveled from SE Asia. Fran was also awarded the Player of the Tournament trophy which was a magnificent achievement.

Again there will be no Asian Games for the Wolfhounds this year. The Games in Bangkok in October will take place without us. However we are training hard and have an influx of new blood with the new Intel boys and a few other new recruits. The future looks bright and we have lofty ambitions for 2009.