Gaelic sports time

I finally tried my hands at hurling and Gaelic football, the all famous Irish games. FYI have not yet found single Irish who does not enthusiastically discuss them.

I started my time with hurling. For those who do not know this sport. The goal posts are a combination of soccer and american football goals. You get more points if you get a goal in the soccer goal net and one point if it goes between the two very high parallel bars.

The game is a mix of cricket hitting and in over the ground field hockey. I really had to forget cricket style hitting as the stick is held in exact opposite way (left hand up and right hand down the handle). Overall it was a fun to play as the cricket training hit in and I made some wonderful shots in. Running with ball and stick on the other hand was not my forte. Balancing the ball on stick while running and avoiding people takes lot of concentration. Sometimes I would even forget where goals and other players are located.

Gaelic football had similar goals and scoring. Yet it was a combination of volleyball style passing, basketball style traveling and soccer style kicking. There were lot of other small and complicated rules but I can tell you about them when we play. Yes and I got two goals in the match which we won 9-4 .

Overall the experience was awesome. The one fact I really liked was the passion that Irish have for their traditional games. There is no money in playing these games and they are not even played internationally. Yet people love to play and support them.