Moving up the levels.
Published on HivePostify by @niallon11 · Thu Sep 03 2026
Summer is over and the weather is changing by the day over here but the championship rolls forward. We have our next game on Monday evening and one more training session tomorrow evening which will probably be a light one to avoid any more injuries. We started off our first game with a playing panel of 28 players suited up on the sideline. We were down to 21 for our last game through various injuries and missing bodies so it will be interesting to see what we have ready to go on Monday evening. Hopefully we have a few of the walking wounded ready to go once more and bring up our numbers. With 15 on the field for Gaelic games and the physical nature of the games, especially the way we play it there is a lot of casualties on both sides. That is why we don't know what we will be walking into either as the other team could be the exact same.
We trained on Tuesday as well and it felt like my best session yet. I was sharp and felt good. Pushed hard in the drills and when we played a practice game at the end I was making a huge effort to get up and down the pitch as much as possible to really step up the levels. Coming from nowhere last year I have a long way to go to catch up with the other players but I want to push ahead and make the sessions as competitive as possible.
It was all going well until the the last few minutes when i tried to block a shot on goal and catch a sliotar full force into the knee in doing so. That's like a baseball full power from one meter away. The bruise is just coming up nicely today but the knee has been hard to move since it happened. There is a giant lump making it very painful to move. Luckily it has faded enough to do some exercise tonight and try to get going again for tomorrow and for the weekend.
At the moment we are third in the group with two games to go and need to be in the top two for a run at the title.
Don't mind the names they are all in Irish. The main thing is that we need to win this game and the next to be sure of getting through and if we lose on Monday night it is all up in the air if we can still qualify or not.
Either way I'm putting in the work and can feel the results this week. It's not enough just to train but you need to keep increasing the difficulty and move up the levels constantly to see results.
Tags: #sports#gaa#ireland#hurling#blogging#hive-115814#sportsblock