Saturday 16 September saw one of the highlights of the Camogie Club's year when we hosted the inaugural U12 Regina Long tournament to commemorate our beloved former secretary who passed away. Amongst the visiting teams we welcomed Skehanagh from Galway, Regina's home club. We were also delighted to welcome back former Mungret St. Pauls player Brian Fitzpatrick who led in two teams from his adopted club of Clooney Quin in Clare. Truagh were also flying the flag for the banner county, with the remaining 12 clubs all coming from Limerick. The senior pitch, the juvenile pitch and the sand pitch were all pressed into action, each pitch hosting a group of four teams, with the group winners to proceed to the cup semi finals and the runners up going to the plate.
Mungret St. Pauls were captained by Regina's daughter Aoife Long. While Mungret St. Pauls have some talented players at U12, we have lost more matches than we won in this year's U12 league, so expectations were modest going into the tournament, with qualification for the plate probably being our target. We got off to a strong start against Croagh Kilfinny in our first group match, with some early goals putting the result beyond doubt well before the final whistle. A much tougher test followed against St Ailbe's, and it took some teak-tough defending to hold our opponents scoreless. Unfortunately we too failed to get on the scoreboard, so we needed a win against Granagh Ballingarry in our last match to make sure of progression from the group. We responded with an absolutely magnificent performance, stunning a hotly favoured Granagh Ballingarry team with a 1-3 burst early on. We conceded a goal subsequently and endured a late goalmouth scramble which the players dealt with calmy and efficiently, while parents and coaches on the sideline were taking turns on the defibrilator. We got home 1-3 to 1-0 for a win that put us into the cup semi final against Bruff. 
This Bruff team had swept all before it in the county league and had rained fire and destruction on us in our league match before the summer, but once more we shot out of the traps and led 2-1 to 0-2 at half time. Frenzied updates were by now zooming back and forth from Japan where U12 head coach Albert O'Grady had the bad fortune to be located as the drama of the day unfolded. Despite playing uphill in the second half we stayed in control of this one and scored a truly remarkable 2-2 to 1-3 win to propel us into the cup final against Truagh. We didn't know what to expect here, but Truagh are regular underage champions in Clare and the last Truagh team to visit Mungret, which was two years ago, were far too strong for us. It was clear from the throw in however that Truagh were going to have to work a lot harder this time, with the ball fizzing up and down and from end to end in a thrilling first half which saw the visitors lead 0-1 to 0-0 at the interval. We had the slope in our favour for the second half, but, despite the urgings of the huge throng that was gathered at the railing, we couldn't get past the Truagh defence, and fell a further point behind to a 45. We gave it one last go, and an absolutely brilliant passage of play saw us split the Truagh defence with two superb passes, but the resultant shot went a hair's breadth wide. That was our final attempt, and Truagh took home the cup on a score of 0-2 to 0-0, a cup which was presented to them by Regina's daughter Erika. Kileedy won the plate, which they received from Regina's mother Evelyn Hughes.
Nontheless the Mungret St. Pauls team can be very proud of their efforts. They came up against a very high standard of opposition and from small beginnings came agonizingly close to winning the tournament outright. Well done to the whole team, each and every one of the following players can be proud of what they achieved; Rachel Connolly, Emma Fitzgerald, Amy O'Halloran, Cliodhna Byrne, Aoife Lyons, Ella Page, Saoirse Casey, Roisin O'Gorman, Eibhlin O'Grady, Aoife Long (capt), Lily Quinn, Brooke Quinn, Caoimhe O'Rourke, Rachel Lynch, Dearbhail Mangan, Ellie Mulqueen, Daisy O'Keeffe, Amy Horgan, Erin O'Connell.
We would like to extend our thanks to the pitch co-ordinators, referees, shop assistants, kitchen staff, stewards, coaches, parents and visiting clubs who made this day such an outstanding success.
Thank you to Conor Wyse who has photos of the day available by clicking HERE