And so we enter end game....

The beginning of the end.

The team came together for the first time after the break this evening and boy I tell you those sweaty buggers were a sight for sore eyes!  I'm under no illusion that there's still a long way to go, but that long way is crammed into one calendar month of solid GFL2 football mayhem!

So, in the immortal words of Celebrity Deathmatch referee Mills Lane: "LET'S GET IT ON!!!"

Good to see the guys again and get back to the field I must say, especially since there’s been an influx of players and therefore an increase in competition for positions.  Any player worth his salt will thrive from competition.  There’s nothing like a guy nipping at your heels to light a fire under your ass, I know that from my years in Dublin.

Now I know from what I’ve just said I’ve implied I felt someone’s breath on my neck in Dublin but if I’m being honest, which I am as always faithful reader, after my first two years I got somewhat complacent and pretty secure in my role with the team.  It sounds horribly arrogant I know, and I’m rather annoyed I’ve just posted it here, but that’s the way it was; I learned the playbook inside out knew the reads etc and just played and got stuck on a plateau, but that worked for the Irish league.  Here in Germany, the pressure to earn and keep your job has taken a violent upswing as many of you will no doubt already know!  But that’s awesome!  I’m forced to dig deeper and find new levels of play somewhere down there in my gut just to hang on: love it.

Again, any player in Ireland or in developing leagues considering getting out there and playing at higher levels, I implore you to make like a Nike advert and just do it!  You can see in the world championship in Austria that the U.S., Candanavia and Japan are leaps and bounds ahead of us Europeans, and it’ll stay like that until we get more players competing at better levels.

So, on that sombre note I shall leave you all to a pleasant evening...

Onwards and upwards all!  Talk soon.