This weekend Rochester Erin's Isle is sponsoring two teams at the Great American Irish Festival Gaelic Football Tournament.
Last year Rochester faced teams from Quebec City, Montreal, Buffalo, Mason Dixon, and Baltimore. This year we know Buffalo and Syracuse will be attending among others.
This tournament is great fun and good way to get a feel of the game up close and personal. Players have plenty of down time and are more than happy to field questions.
The festival is held at Herkimer County Fairgrounds. All games are played on Saturday and start at noon.
Here is my write up on last years event.
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Your Rochester Erin's Isle competed in the annual 7v7 Great American Irish Festival Gaelic Football Tournament on Saturday.
In the two game round-robin, followed by a 4 team playoff, Erin's Isle got off to a great start.
In game one Rochester faced their greatest rival, Buffalo. The game was pretty even up until the last 2 minutes of the 10 minute first half. As two players were getting into a shoving match in front of yours truly about a late hit, Rochester was able to score the only goal of the game which with their single point earned from putting the ball over the crossbar was enough for them to start the day 1-0.
The second match was against Quebec City. Though not nearly as rough as the Buffalo match, it was no less intense. After 20 minutes of play the score was tied. It was determined that penalty kicks would decide the victory.
Quebec won the toss to kick first. They fired a hard shot into the upper left corner where the keeper had no chance. Rochester’s first kick was almost an exact duplicate and was put into triplicate by Quebec’s second kicker even though I had chosen correctly on the placement. Rochester’s second kicker fired it low but wide left. With one kicker left for each team before sudden death penalty kicks, Rochester needed a stop. Quebec made a mental mistake and instead of putting the game away with a chip over the crossbar to score one point (instead of the three for putting it in the net) their third shooter fired it just a touch to the left and it was easily deflected away for the first save of the penalty shots. Now Rochester needed to score to continue on. On a hard shot that went to the right and was put in just under the cross bar Rochester stayed alive. Quebec continued the pk’s with another beautiful shot in the upper left corner. Rochester once again was on the ropes and needed to score and once again came up big. On the next shot by Quebec, it was fired almost directly at me, the keeper. With another big save I came out of the net roaring knowing we could just chip it to win. Our shooter mishit the ball though and it sailed straight but low of the cross bar where an out stretched arm from the Quebec keeper stopped it from entering the net. The next round was almost an exact duplicate of the round before without me running out of the net all fired up after my stop. We entered round seven of the pk’s. Once again Quebec’s shooters tried to shove it down the middle with a hard shot right at me and though I had started to move away from it I recognized it soon enough to complete another save. This time our shooter didn’t miss. With a nice chip over the cross bar we went up 2-0 in the most exciting match of the day.
Thanks to a rain delay and a 2 game waiting period, Rochester had a 2 hour delay before their next game. Just prior to it, Mason Dixon was playing Montreal. In an illegal but unavoidable hit from behind Montreal had a player go down. He landed hard and separated his shoulder and was taken by ambulance to the local hospital. Montreal then conceded the match putting them at a record of 0-2. Buffalo was also at 0-2 at this point after their second round loss to 2-0 Baltimore. Mason Dixon was 1-1 because of a first round loss to Baltimore and Quebec City beat Montreal in round one putting them at 1-1.
This led to the 4 game playoff: Rochester vs Mason Dixon and Baltimore vs Quebec City.
Mason Dixon had speed that Rochester could not compete with and scored a goal in the first half which we could not answer with one of our own. It was obvious that the delay took its toll on the much older Rochester squad, but by the second half, everything but the score had evened out and in some ways were tipping to Rochester favor. But Rochester suffered its first loss and its bid for the Championship.
In the consolation game against Baltimore (who lost to Quebec when they scored a tournament high 4 goals) Rochester had to suffer through another long delay and decided to play conservatively to avoid any injuries. Baltimore scored two goals and a few points.
So out of the tournament of 6, Rochester went 2-2 and took 4th place. Which isn’t so bad when you considered we were the only team to beat the champions and had the same record as the team who took second.
This year hopes to be even more competative.
Oh yeah and the festival is fun too. http://www.gaif.us/
