Connacht Sabotage the Galway ‘Blazers’
**HIT REPORT - GALWAY BLAZERS OPENING MEET**
23.10.21
A small team of us gathered together at 5:30am yesterday morning, expecting to hit what was thought to be one of the last cubbing sessions of the year. How wrong we were.
We were kennel watching the Blazers for about an hour until we saw multiple vehicles head into the kennels around 7am. We waited for the hounds to come back out, however, they did not appear. More vehicle activity followed, and this continued with no Hounds until 9am, well past cubbing times.
Undeterred by the lack of action, we decided there may be a chance of them doing a main season meet, as there was constant kennel activity throughout the morning. To kill time, we tipped down to the local forest to quickly check a few setts, and practice sab skills.
Coming back to Craughwell town at 10:30am, we saw a plethora of activity in the town - we realized at this stage they would be doing their opening meet in their hometown. With our small team, and the Blazer's history of assaulting our sabs, we knew it was going to be a tricky day.
Immediately after jumping in the field and confronting them as they threw hounds into woodland, they raced up to us, trying to push us out. The minute we started using whips to interfere, huntsman Anthony Costello threatened assault and theft of our equipment if we did not leave. Given previous history, we didn't have much choice but to back off slightly to avoid being trampled and mugged by these west brits on horseback.
We carried on into the day, working mainly from public land and roadside to interfere with hound cries and spray woodland if needed. At one point they had 20-30 hounds running onto a local GAA pitch, near a playground - Anthony struggling to control them.
We saw a fox at one stage, later on in the day, and this was dealt with by us - the scent subsequently went cold for the hounds, despite Anthony pushing them on.
We spent 2.5 hours with them - we couldn't be sure they hadn't killed, however, they lost the fox that we saw, and we didn't see any hunt/hound activity to suggest a kill. This won't be the end of us and the Blazers, not for a long time. As long as they hunt, we'll be coming for them.
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