Shane and Niall headed off to Fonyod in Hungary in the first of the Club's summer trips to training camps. Two of our most experienced Senior players, John Bowe and Marcus McDonnell headed out with them to the lakeside Hungarian retreat where the camp will be conducted under the supervision of Werner Schlager's coach.
The training was superb and very tough. Lots of physical training and long three hour table tennis sessions with high quality partners and multi ball. It was an eye opener for the two young players especially.
At the end of the week they four players headed for Budapest and the Euro Youth championships. Anyone can attend the event and in fact most countries have many more supporters than we have. With all the interest in the team's performance this year, I expect many more people will put their money where their mouth is next year and travel out to the event where they can get an accurate picture of the team performance and then be able to make a more informed report. This event cost the players in the region of 1000 euro each and this shows a rare interest and dedication.
The two younger players were very interested in the progress of the Irish teams and of the the event in general and spent their days from 9 in the morning till 7 in the evening in the hall watching all the matches. It is safe to say that they were shocked by the standard which was very high this year with hardly any bad teams and many good players in all age groups. They both were enthused by what they saw and are looking forward to the new season