After the success of our first Open Day which was attended by a good number of newcomers despite snow the night before and freezing conditions on the day, we're following up with the second of our Open Days, coming up on Sunday week, 2pm March 21st.

Everyone is welcome to come along; bring your friends and anyone interested in learning about the game. We'll teach the skills of the game, give some tips in a no-pressure environment, then finish up with some light simulated game drills.

Hi Guys,

I hope you're all fit and healthy after the Christmas / New Year break and looking forward to pre-season training for this coming season like I know a lot of lads are. Now is the time to get out there for a run or two during the week, and to start doing some strength work, like some sit-ups & push-ups every other night, to get yourselves ready for pre-season.

AGM

Our Annual General Meeting will be held on Sunday week, the 24th of January from 2.30pm onwards. Stay tuned to your email or check the club website for the location; it'll either be the Terenure Rubgy Club or a pub in Terenure/Rathmines. We may get a lunch before moving onto the big issues for the season ahead. We'll send out an Agenda to everyone ini the week leading up to the AGM.

Pre-Season Training

The coaching board (Scotty, Rhino, Marty & Farmer) have already met this year and set the calendar of training dates shown below. Our first session will be at Bushy Park Sunday January 31st, the last Sunday January. During that week there are the Australia Day celebrations at The Woolshed.

From then onwards we'll be training every Sunday, during which time you will be required to do extra work at home, during the week. From March onwards we will commence training once during the week, Wednesday as well as the Sunday sessions. About two weeks before the season commences we will move training to twice during the week, and then stop the Sunday sessions once our competitive matches start.

Our Sunday training sessions will be varied, and for the first stage we'll mainly be focussing on our fitness and strength. Access the calendar here.

Recruitment / Trial Days

As part of our push for season 2010, we'll be running 2 'Trial Days' on Sunday 21st of February & Sunday 21st of March. These will be heavily promoted by ourselves and will be a day where new players or anyone at all interested in Aussie Rules can come along and try out kicking, marking and hand-balling a footy in a no-pressure environment. We will have our fitness session beforehand, then get any newcomers involved in some light-hearted games and a bit of kick-to-kick.

We all need to get out there and recruit as many new teammates as we can for us to have a successful 2010. Get onto anyone you know, or any places you think might have a few potential players for us, and get them along to one of the Trial Days, or pre-season training if they want to get fit.

Cheers guys, see you all at the AGM and our first pre-season session, and get recruiting!

Scotty.

After recapping many enthralling encounters (I'm sure the girls will agree), and counting all of the votes, Big Paul was declared the runaway winner. Paul polled well in every game to finish a full 21 votes ahead of Farmer in 2nd place. Co-Captain Rhino finished third. The full vote table is:

The deserving winner of the inaugural 'Aurelian Baud Rookie of The Year Award' was Noel, ahead of Paul and Eoin in 3rd.

In the goal-kicking stakes, Bryce finished the season as top premiership goal kicker, a competition he lead all year. The top 5 ended up as follows:

We would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and all the best for the holiday season.

The Swans are getting together to celebrate with a kick-around this Saturday at Bushy Park at 12pm. Get along to stretch the legs before all the celebrating starts taking it's toll on your body. With that in mind, we're getting together with WAGs, friends and anyone else on Saturday afternoon for our Christmas party. We're doing the 12 Pubs of Christmas along Camden St, so get onto Crazy or Scotty for details.

The Swans put in a great performance yesterday afternoon on our new pitch in Bushy Park to beat the Midland Tigers in a see-sawing affair and make it through to the Grand Final. Dunney's full match report will follow tomorrow afternoon here on www.southdublinswans.com.

Get down to support the Swans as they take on the Dublin Demons in the Grand Final on Saturday 12th September in St. David's College, Artane.

After a great season, the Swans have finished in 2nd position on the ladder at the end of the home & away season and are into the finals.

The knockout Semi Final takes place this Saturday at 1.30pm in Bushy Park, on the main pitch alongside Templogue Rd, Terenure. Get down and support the Swans as we take on the 3rd place finishing Midland Tigers for the chance to get into the Grand Final on the 12th of September.

Go Swans!