Players from Trinity College Dublin  visited the young patients and hardworking staff at Temple Street Childrens Hospital on Thursday 15th December. The visit served as an opportunity for young kids in the wards to meet American Football players who turned up for the occasion in full helmets and shoulder pads, but also gave the opportunity for Trinity Football to deliver 130+ childrens toys donated through it’s second annual toys for tots drive.

This year saw the rivalry of Trinity College(TCD) and University College Dublin(UCD) set aside as both teams played on Dec 3rd in a game organised as a focal point for this years toy drive. Players, coaches and spectators turned up with childrens toys to donate as the price of admission to the game. The game saw TCD come out 7-0 victors over UCD with RB Rob McDowell scoring the winning touchdown and Peter Quinlan kicking the PAT.

 The real winners on the day however were the kids staying in Irelands national childrens hospital. Coach O’Toole and his players turned up at the hospital laden with bags of toys, with presents ranging from rattles for infants, to dolls for young girls, to Transformers and xbox games for the older kids who will be staying in the hospital over the Christmas period.

 Coach O’Toole said “We wanted to do something to give our players a sense of perspective and of giving back to the community. Where we don’t have financial means to assist, I realised coaches do have great influence, so the toy drive was born. I reached out to Coach Collins and his team who embraced the toy drive and really helped make it a success. We are also very thankful of the people who turned up on the day to donate and watch a great game of football.Today our players got to see how they can make a real positive impact both through donating the toys and by spending time with some fantastic kids who we hope get well soon.” 

The IAFL Annual General Meeting took place at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Santry, Dublin on Sunday 4^th December.

Terry Lynch, Cillian Smith and Russell Kerley were re-elected to the Board for the 2012 season. They are joined by Ciaran O’Sullivan, who has previously served on the Board and Alan Orr who will be serving for the first time.

The biggest change arising from the AGM is that the league will be adopting a new structure which is largely based on the recommendations of the scheduling workshop held in September. There will be two divisions –  IAFL North and IAFL South. The regular season will start in early March and conclude in early June with the Shamrock Bowl taking place in the first half of July. The full schedule will be circulated to member teams within the next 2-3 weeks.

Three new teams have applied to join the DV8s league: South East Strongbows, Rathangan Soldiers and Mullingar Minotaurs.