... Silver(ware) lining: Why these are heady days for Creggs rugby

Our man Frank on exciting times at Creggs RFC; A 66-year-old jockey is first past the post… and celebrating the first anniversary of our Ukrainian friends arriving in Donamon…

It’s a very wet Monday morning, and I am writing this piece while waiting on my wife Carol, who has an appointment in the old Regional Hospital in Galway.

I am not a genius when it comes to us- ing modern technology, and so I have no laptop! Instead, every week I write these musings on my mobile phone. This means I can do it anywhere (as long as I have credit).

As I wait, I am thinking about the heady days (and nights) that we are having out here in Creggs Rugby Club. A couple of weeks ago, our first team won the final of the Connacht Junior League and brought a cup back to the village for the first time in almost 30 years.

And just like the buses that arrive in twos, after an interminable wait, two of them come together, with our second team doing exactly the same thing by bringing their league cup back to Creggs last Sunday. They too had waited close to 30 years for silverware and, similar to two weeks ago, we celebrated in fitting style.

Captain Brian Cody has been playing (from underage up) for fifteen years by now, and it was a huge delight to see him lift the cup. Funnily enough, there were two Fahy brothers from Tulsk, Regan and Callum, on the team as well; back in 1987, their grand-uncle, the great Tulsk and Roscommon midfielder Gerry Beirne, won a Junior League medal with Creggs. In my very short intercounty football career (about four months), I had got to know Gerry fairly well. He was a great friend of our own Marky Fitzmaurice, and it was Marky’s influence that persuaded him to line out in the maroon and white of Creggs. The fact that Tulsk and Creggs both favour the maroon and white may have been a deciding factor as well!

Both Gerry and Marky passed away at relatively young ages, but both had a big impact on Creggs, Marky as a fantastic footballer, and Gerry as a top quality rugby player. And so it was a great thrill for me on Sunday evening to meet Gerry’s sister Eileen, and she was delighted to have her two grandsons keeping up the tradition of hav-