All roads will lead to the midlands this Saturday or more specifically the picturesque Lough Owel course just outside Mullingar. The course will present a sizeable challenge for the counties taking part and the home county with many players from the host club will be expected to perform well here. Dublin have an Inter and Junior team taking part. The Inter team have had the perfect preparations with a morale boosting win over WestMeath in Erins Isle at the end of August and a win over Old County in Kimmage a fortnight ago. The juniors narrowly lost the challenge with WestMeath but bounced back strongly to defeat Old County. The Inter team looks a very good one with the double Dublin champion Dave Donnelly from the Erins Isle club, the vast experience of Charlie Egan, David Hayden II and Trevor Heffernan, the youth of Liam O’Reilly and the talent that is Glenn Woodward. The Junior team contains a plethoria of players who have emerged on the circuit this year. Old County duo Eric Byrne & Anthony Parsons have been the breakthrough talents in their clubs this year, Christopher Byrne has been a member of the all conquering Lucan Junior team and a winner of the Junior Prize in the Dublin Scratch Cup in June. Ciaran Claffey is another emerging talent from the Shandon Club and a bright future awaits this young left hander. Brian Flanagan and Brendan Mullaly bring much needed experience to the team and they appear to have found form at just the right time.
Kildare, Wexford, Offaly and of course Westmeath will have teams taking part on Saturday. It promises to be a truly historic occasion with county teams competing at Inter & Junior level and those at the forefront hope it will be the start of a regular challenge on the circuit. Westmeath duo James Corcoran and David Corcoran has been instrumental in ensuring Saturday will happen and on the Dublin side Charlie Egan has worked extremely hard to make sure Dublin was at the fore front of this new initiative, Charlie was ably assisted by Rob Ryan and Dave Hayden II. The County board have backed this venture since Day 1 and we hope come Saturday evening that Dublin will once again be on the podium when the prizes are given out. We hope a good few from the capital will make the trip down the N6 and support the guys. Best of luck to them.