WEEKLY REVIEW April 11th 2014 You may be pleased to hear that Mr. Conneely and Mr. Murnane arrived happily back from their L.C.A. overnight retreat in Foynes. The gods have a sense of humour might be one conclusion to be drawn. No sooner were they ensconced in Corbally than it was time to haul our first year sinners away to Clonmacnoise for a day’s soul searching and soul cleansing. The stones so carefully laid down by St Ciaran in the Dark Ages are happily still standing having survived this visitation. By all accounts it was a fruitful retreat with a blend of thoughtful reflection, historical insight and a full blooded game of rugby on the sacred turf. To wrap things up spiritually all that remains is for Mr. Coneely to lead our 6th years on the annual assault of the “Reek” in May. Will we be hearing “Fieska” bellowed from the top of Croagh Patrick again this year? Our overworked Chaplain was clocking up a few travel miles this week looking after corporal health as well as spiritual. His under 16 footballers had a convincing ¼ final win over old rivals Doon. They followed this up promptly with a semi final victory against Newcastle West. The final is against Tipperary boys Newport after Easter and we wish all involved the very best in the pursuit of silverware. Laurels of a different sort found their way onto the young head of 3rd year Glen Kiely who successfully represented the College in a Coding competition. Glen now goes to Google HQ in barrow Street, Dublin to represent the region in the National finals. Despite being given gigabytes of data on the subject I haven’t a clue what it is but it’s clear that Glen knows the difference between a CPU and a micro chip. Also finding himself at the top of the tree is first year Liam O Brien who beat over 1500 other candidates when found himself placed in the top of the national Scratch competition. He now heads to the finals at Dublin Castle later in May. Very best wishes Liam. And Liam wasn’t the only first year picking up a gong this week. Fionn O Regan charmed the audience and more importantly the judges with his thoughts on what he’d miss on a desert island. Fionn beat ten other masters of rhetoric to win the first year public speaking competition. Well done to all involved. The art room was emptied of all its yellow paint as the lads excelled with their Daffodil art competition. This was a follow up to Mr. Barrets fundraiser with LCA which raised so much money and, equally importantly awarenes,s for the cancer charity. Congrats to budding Picassos, Danny, Conor, Killian and Adam. Oh my, it doesn’t stop there for our first years. Our Basketballers had a good day against Croom and played some scintillating stuff running out winners with all players getting a meaningful amount of court time. Congratulations to Coach Ms. Behan for her hard work and efforts and to Cian and Conor who have nurtured these hoop shooting kittens since before Christmas. And the rugby boys had two games. The first at home to Comp saw us win one and lose the other, a satisfying enough outcome given that Comp had been one of the few teams to beat us this season. And then it was off to Kilkenny for our final game of the year which also saw them share the spoils with one win and one loss, the “A” team’s first defeat since October. The bus back had an end of season feel to it, awards were discussed for best try (Woodsie v Cambridge) least likely to pass (Danny), worst performance( 1st game against Comp) best tackler (close call with Josh shading it) , speedster ( a three way split with a one off race to decide at lunch time) and others that can’t be printed. Suffice to say that there are a lot of first year rugby players with egos the size of Belgium and girlfriends as fictional as Snow White( only better looking). Well done to all the players who have worn our shirt proudly in a season where they have upheld our reputation for honest sportsmanship and rugged endeavour. And thanks to the coaching staff for putting up with the team’s biggest baby- Mr. Conneely. Well done Alan, Adam, David and Eric. Next year’s Mc Carthy cup team got a run out when they had a very physical contest away to Kilkenny. Three tries down after ten minutes the lads showed their mettle and scrapped like cornered lions nearly pulling off a shock comeback losing out 40- 37. Well done to the lads who refused to lie down . It’s been a topsy turvy season and difficult to assess . This 14s group were the core of the under 15 “B” team that reached the semi of the Mc Carthy Cup and lost in the last play of the final of the North Munster. Should they stay together all the way to senior cup they’ll be in the shake up. Spaceman Prof. Gary Stutte came to town in his NASA jumpsuit to talk to the lads about the international space station project. The plan is for Munchins to get involved in a project he is coordinating at LIT. This involved examining the effects of limited gravity on the fixing of nitrogen in clover plant. The experiment will blast off for the International Space Station in September. Perhaps the packaging will contain the words Munchins Inside. Now that is a big idea. And an equally big idea was a day devoted to survival skills and coping mechanisms delivered to our TYs. Appropriately called Bounce it was an enjoyable all day seminar on how to deal with what life throws at you. Wish I’d gone myself. This was a fine adjunct to the TYs attendance at the careers module in Ul. Which was also organically linked to the 5th year subject options information night for parents and students. Well scheduled by our TY coordinators Alan and Paul or should that be Paul and Alan, ( they are a very competitive double act with some palpable hidden tensions over whose name comes first in the partnership). Otherwise there was a strong whiff of Junior and Leaving Cert in the College. The place was a temporary Tower of Babel with Irish, French and German orals . Every afternoon there was a second pre being done in the assembly Hall, last minute touches to Projects, extra classes after school and revision sheets handed out for certificate students to help direct their study over the Easter break. It is important for our lads to make the most of this time and it is reassuring to see the take up on supervised study over the Easter. A time of hard work for those facing the big exams but we hope not too much stress. Have a happy and peaceful Easter from all in St Munchins College.
Posted on: Sun, 13 Apr 2014 10:39:44 +0000
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