Recap

Last Friday night in Laval saw the recommencement of the now infamous Summer Superleague between the Goosevillage Blackrock and Griffintown Gaels. Under the shadow of the new home of AHL team Laval Rocket one could have been forgiven for mistaking that their off ice preseason training had started such was the ferocity of this encounter.

Fresh from their Winter league triumph,granted missing a few key players Blackrocks would have been quietly confident of a strong performance but it was the Gaels who started strongly with a flurry of scores from the boot of Conor McNeilis. Ludovic Boutevin;playing in his last game before heading home to France after a stellar spell for Gaels, Montreal Shamrocks and Canada Gaa came storming up from the back to pick off some nice scores.

With new Gaels recruits John McAvoy and Barry Cox contributing well with accurate scores and kick outs respectively, they pinned the Blackrocks back and it wasn’t until mid way through the half that the Blackrocks registered a score. With a swirling breeze and “the hill” with them they continued to attack bravely but went in for the oranges 4:6 to 2:2 down.

The second half was similar fashion to the first, the wind now in their backs the Gaels pushed on and the ever clinical Ciaran “I’m not running for the ball” Walsh helping the Gaels to a commanding lead.

With Neil o’ Brien and new man Dara Corrigan linking up well around the middle providing the killer passes the Gaels looked like a team on a mission. Storming runs from the back-line from Liam Patterson-Morris, Conall McConnaith, Guillame Ducharme, and David Lemmonier feeding the ever industrious Stevie “mad scientist” Owens (finishing with an impressive 4 goals and 2 points) and young Lawless for some hard fought scores.

But the damage was done in the first half and in the end the Gaels ran out comfortable winners on a score line of 10:15 to 5:6