First match out of the way.

The hurling season is up and running with training back in full swing. Our championship doesn't start until early August but we have gotten a few training sessions under the belt and a challenge match last night.

Technically it's actually the second match as I was down at the pitch Tuesday night and the team above us in the club were playing a challenge as well but were short players to fill out the squad. That means I was thrown into corner back against a team three divisions ahead of us with no notice, no warm up and no preparation. As you can imagine I was turned inside out by a 20 year old for the whole game and wasn't alone since our whole team was patched together with players in the same position. It wasn't a pretty sight as we got played off the pitch on a roasting hot day. It gave me a good wake up call for the summer.

Sometimes it feels like the harder i work and the more I train that the worse I get.

Yesterday was different.

We were playing with our own panel, we were all prepared and ready to go. We had a clean run into the game.

This is the way that it should be. Almost a full panel and starting at corner back again against a young lad but at least he wasn't levels above me this time.

He obviously had the legs and pace being about 22 but I managed to read the game better than him and keep him scoreless for the full game. He only got two half shots off in the first half and was swapped out for the second half.

Second half was a player more my age and much more savvy in the game but i managed to keep him scoreless as well even though he had a good run in on goal at one stage before i fouled him and put him out over the sideline.

It had to be done and since it was a challenge i escaped a clear booking and cut off a goal chance.

We won the game well in the end scoring 3-17 to 0-10 and our team was better all over the pitch. It's a good start but there will be much better teams ahead in the championship and we have a long way to go before we get therein terms of training.

It was my best match since taking up the sport and spending the spring training and playing with our better team has made a huge difference to my game overall and has helped me pick up a few new skills along the way.

We will train on Tuesday and probably another match on Friday if it works out but I will try to do a bit myself in the meantime.