Oh God, Oh God, Oh God, What a Blitz…..Bruff Tag Rugby

Aug 172009

There is no doubt we feel that saturday was the very best blitz ever.

Firstly we would like everyone that was there to contact us directly with comments, Honest Comments by email to : pr@bruffrfc.com What did we do wrong, what we can improve, what we should change, what went perfect, what went alright and what was poor. We need your honest opinions and I guarantee that I will respond personally to each and every one whether good or bad.

From our point of view, we had everything that we could have asked for and more, following the unbeliavable opening party in Clancy’s on Friday night:

Rochdale Swarm at Clancy's for the opening Party

The torrential rain stopped at quarter past ten in the morning (AGAIN!!!!, who was on their knees? ) and it seemed to go almost perfectly from there on (from where I was for the duration).
Just a quick few words before I head out the door to the post-blitz committee meeting tonight:

38 teams in 4 Divisions, (A,B,C,D) 8 Pools on 8 pitches. Seventy nine pool games completed, twenty eight teams made Semis & then we had the group and section finals. Thanks to the trojan work put in during the day by the crew in the office and on the pitches, we had everything done and dusted in time on time well ten mintues off 🙂 . Just goes to show what a non-profit, non-commercial group of volunteers can accomplish.

First off, A special thanks to Gráinne for the absolutely great work done over the last four to five months.

Thanks to you, the players, the Teams that travelled from Exeter in devon, Rochdale near Sale, London and from Fermoy, Tralee, Clonmel, Ennis, Galway, Cork, Kildare and all over Limerick.
Thanks to the absolutely fabulous Ruth Scott and Paddy Mc Kenna and the 2FM Roadcaster, sponsored by Kelloggs Get Active. (you can play back the show on www.2fm.ie). You guys were absolutely fabulous and really added to the atmosphere on the day.
We had the traditional Bucking Bronco Bull that carried Ruth Scott, Jon Kenny and the “other Bull” John Hayes on its back during the day:

Jon Kenny wrestling steers

We had the gorgeous pear babes for the Bulmers Pear “Embrace the Pear” in the bar on Saturday evening dishing it out as fast as they could cope with the queue (They told us that they had never seen such a thirsty Horde 🙂 ).

Veteran Bull N Booze Live Band Intrigue absolutely rocked the joint, Alec and the lads were just on FIRE, and they asked me to say thanks to all of you there on the night for making it such a fabulous gig. Saturday night for me cemented their reputation as one of the absolutely best live bands in the Mid-West region and vindicated my faith in them. Thanks guys:

Intrigue

We had approximately 70 tents dotted around on the pitches, lunches, burgers, dinners, teas, cakes, sambos, ice cream, chips and sunday morning breakfast.

The Magners League, 6 Nations and Triple Crown Trophies were on show all day courtesy of the IRFU and MAR, thanks again guys for all of your assistance leading up to the day.

We saw the presentation of the first ever Honorary life membership of Bruff RFC to Munster, Ireland and Lions player, Bruff’s own John Hayes and his good lady Fiona (passed at this years AGM):

John Hayes with the 6 Nations, Magners League and Triple Crown Trophies.

Next up I have to pay a very sincere thank you to all of our referees on the day. They put in tremendous work and did so without a word of complaint, I can only hope that you enjoyed yourselves as much as we enjoyed having you. I didn’t get a chance to meet all of you before ye left but again a sincere thanks to you all and I will be in touch personally.

For the record, Saturday was a prime example of how our club can run an event perfectly or as close to perfectly as makes no difference. A very special thank you to all of our volunteers from Mary Paul and her crew in the bar to The Cahills, Mike Lillian and co for the kitchen and all of our pitch co-ordinators and our own guys who filled in to give the refferees a break as and when needed.