Junior Trip - Highfield Squash

We arrived bang on time at 10.00 at the Limerick courts where we were met by Liam who had 8 x Juniors eager to meet the HF players. The Limerick facility is a fantastic set-up – similar to the Well in Cork they have a lot of tennis courts out front, a nice pavilion and have 3 x fabulous squash courts at the rear – one of them is an all-glass-back with a tiered seating gallery and our HF Juniors eyes nearly popped out when they saw it – Cillian Cronnelly was drooling and on to Bryan immediately and couldn’t contain himself trying to get a match scheduled on this show-court.

Mairead gave a brief talk regards respecting the facility and laying down some rules about not leaving the grounds etc. and then Bryan and Liam got together and immediately started breaking the Juniors into various groups and within 5 mins of landing the first games were in progress. Many thanks also to Liam for arranging tea/coffee + a very generous amount of tasty scones to have as an early morning snack as we got going with the squash. Coach Brendan was given the show-court and had 8 x U11s, 4 HF & 4 Limerick. He gave them 30 mins of coaching and then started a blitz giving them all full matches against each other – Ziad, Rory, Sam and Cian from Limerick against Colm, Fionn, Cian, David from HF. This is the 1st time the U11 HF lads would have seen a glass court and it was a huge treat for them to play on this court – it didn’t bother them in the slightest that a large audience of 20+ people were watching their games, if anything they played up to the crowd with HFs Cian Lenane, Colm & Fionn McSherry and David Delaney having a blast, Brendan as usual had set the right tone of having fun and they loved every minute of it.

Coach Cyril and Siobhan took a younger group of new beginners (Nicole, Karen, Leah, Laura) onto Court 2 where they did some coaching and then played various games and had great fun. Bryan took the last court and broke the remaining Juniors (ages 12-16) into two groups of 7 and 9, the 7 were made up of some of the stronger HF players including Sophie and Munster players Eoin, Jack-D, Jack-L , Caoimhe and Shane, the group of 9 included 5 x HF & 4 x Limerick players. Bryan gave the priority to the HF v Limerick matches as the intention of the day was always about playing against players from different clubs – Liam should be very proud of his Limerick Juniors Kate, Eimear, Killian and Nicky who are only just beginners but still put up a great show against HF’s Cian O’Connor, Cillian Cronnelly, Eoin Lyne, James Scally and Desmond Doran. Once Cyril and Brendan’s groups had their matches played, Bryan took ownership of those two courts also and made sure the stronger HF Juniors got to play some longer matches against each other – one of the standout matches of the day was between HF’s Sean Cronin and Adam O’Brien who took part in a 5-game thriller with 2 of the games going to 16-14 and the 5th was won by Sean by the tightest of margins in the end at 17-15 with Desmond Doran taking charge as ref. Liam also arranged a large AstroTurf area adjacent to the squash courts for our use so while some of the Juniors were on the courts the others were able to enjoy the beautiful sunshine outside and kick around a soccer ball (which they lost J). Thanks also to coach Siobhan for having to foresight and bringing along sun block.

By 1.00 all the Juniors had played many matches so we broke for lunch for 1 hour. The older Juniors took a walk to a nearby shop to get ice-cream, the younger Juniors demolished their food as quick as they could and went back on court to play ¾ –court matches. Our HF Juniors are an absolute credit to their upbringing – at no time was there any rubbish from food left lying about and the Limerick facility remained in immaculate condition throughout the day. The coaches and travelling parents also got a chance to take in the sun for the lunch hour and sat at a table over-looking the tennis courts while they ate their food in glorious surroundings.

At 2.00 sharp the squash kicked off again – we went with a similar formula where Brendan took the U-11 boys on one court, Cyril & Siobhan took the girls on the 2nd and Bryan this time took the show-court and gave the older Juniors a chance to play on an all-glass court, some of the HF players had never done this before and it was a real treat – Cillian Cronnelly looked like he won the lotto and had the biggest smile on his face when Mairead told him he was going on “Seriously?!”. As the afternoon progressed the energy levels started to dissipate (just a tad) and some of the Limerick Juniors had to leave. There was great fun behind the show-court throughout the afternoon where everyone got involved in cheering on and supporting the players on court and a big thank you to Cillian Cronnelly who again took the reins when it came to reffing and offered to ref a lot of the matches and made some great calls. By 3.30 a lot of the Juniors had enough squash for the day, gathered their gear and hit the showers. The ever-improving Eoin Murphy however was mad-keen for one last match on the show-court and coach Brendan offered to go on and they played out a tight sporting match with Eoin showing many deft touches and displaying hints of the fantastic squash player he’s going to become over the next few years.

By 4.00 we were all done – we combed the area to make sure all loose racquets, goggles, tops, shoes, gear bags, phones, coats, etc were all claimed and with their rightful owners, we packed up the bus – Mairead did umpteen headcounts J, everyone thanked Liam and his Juniors for a fantastic day and we extended an invitation to all of them to visit us in HF and then we were on to the most important part of the day (according to some of the Juniors J) – McDonalds! Lucky for us that the nearest one to the courts was less than 5 mins away and the Juniors chowed down on some well-deserved Big-Macs and McFlurries. We arrived back in HF safe & sound by 7.00 and all the exhausted Juniors were collected by their parents. It was a fantastic day out and enjoyed by everyone. Many thanks to Mairead for organising the bus and the trip to Limerick, thanks to Liam and his Juniors for the wonderful warm reception we received in Limerick, thanks to the coaches and parents who travelled to supervise and a huge thanks to our HF juniors who are simply the BEST and a privilege to take anywhere. Next year – Disney Land! J Up Highfield!