Click here to see details of Eire Og’s trip to the 2010 GENSB Games in Raalte, the Netherlands on the 28th of August. Once again Eire Og qualified for the knockout stages and improved their GENSB ranking to 12th.
Click here to see details of the GENSB development squads trip to an open competition held in Daventry England on the 16th May 2010.
Click here to see details of Eire Og’s trip to the 2009 GENSB Games in Penhale, England on the 29th of August. Eire Og qualified for the knockout stages for the second year running.
Click here to see details of the GENSB development squads trip to an open competition in Daventry England on the 10th May 2009.
Click here to see the results and the rankings for the 2008 GENSB Games in Germany. Also see the top three finishers in the games since 1998
August 2008
The 2008 GENSB games took place in Reilingen Germany on Saturday the 23rd of August. Following last year’s successful trip to Belguim the Irish Tug of War Association again sent a squad to this year’s games in Germany. The Irish party of 22 people flew Ryanair from Dublin to Frankfurt on Friday the 22nd; transport to Reilingen was arranged by the Ogra team of the Reilinger Buwe. The Irish who were travelling with a young squad were hoping to improve on last year’s ranking of 25th and performed very well qualifying for the last 16. The group returned home on the Sunday following a very successful and enjoyable trip. We would like to offer a sincere thanks to the Ogra team of the Reilinger Buwe who were very helpful with organising the trip and ensured that we all had an enjoyable stay in Reilingen. See the report below on the Irish (Eire Og) teams competition from the point of view of the ITOWA Tutor and group leader Eddie Fitzgerald.
Eire Óg team in action at the GENSB games
Fourty eight teams from nine countries took part in the 10th GENSB International youth Tug of War games held in Reilingen, Germany. The Irish Development squad (Eire Og) were from a number of clubs; Tara Arms from Co. Carlow, Sportsmen from Co. Louth and Bremore from Co. Dublin. We had a reasonable draw and had to contend with some big names; Ebersecken from Switzerland, TTV Mertensmanne from Belgium, Vedum AIS from Sweden, Lecester ACF from England, TZV Denzlingen from Germany, Meskuiciai LTU from Lithuania and TTV Deinum from the Netherlands. We met Ebersecken in the first pull but they were just a bit too strong for us. We settled in then and only dropped another 3 points to Mertensmanne taking 15 points from a possible 21 to qualify for the knockout stages.
Eire Óg group at the GENSB games
This was the first time an Irish team had qualified for the second phase at the games. We drew Saldus JS from Latvia in the last 16 but they proved a little too strong for us. Saldus were bronze medallists in the world clubs at Minehead last September. This was a great tournament for us considering we had a very young squad. Sean Murray of the Sportsmen club at thirteen years of age is in his second GENSB and is a credit to the sport; we wish we had ten more like him. With Steven Murray, Chris Smyth, Mick Travers and Richard Thompson still only sixteen years of age we have a bright future. The GENSB competition is 12 – 18 age group and teams can be 7 – 10 pullers up to 560 kilos. We are now ranked 15th in the GENSB up ten places from 2007 and hope to improve on that in Cornwall England in 2009.
Eddie Fitzgerald (NCTC ITOWA Tutor)
The Eire Og GENSB squad were Sean Murray, Steven Murray, Chris Smyth, Tom Byrne, Richard Thompson, James Thompson, Michael Travers, Eoin Roche, Robert Keogh, John Kehoe (coach), Seamus Keogh (waterman), Eddie Fitzgerald (group leader), Gerry Ferguson (ITOWA coaching officer)
Click here to see more photographs of the Eire Og squad at the GENSB games in Germany.
Youths 12-18 interested in joining the squad can contact Eddie or Gerry (see details below) or email us at the address below.
All inquiries to:
Eddie Fitzgerald
ITOWA Tutor
Tel: 086 0636368
or
Gerry Ferguson
Coaching Officer
Tel: 087 2496915
Feel free to contact us with any inquiries regarding youth development
