The long wait is finally over. The long hours in the gym, the dawn runs on the dunes, the miles put in in the swimming pool; and Batpak bodies are peaking at the right time. It’s show time, and every Batpak body on display is a finely-honed testament to peak fitness.

Its April 24th. The first opponents are the newly-promoted Marlay Mayhem, and, pre-match, BurnzY is wandering around telling himself the story of the Young Bull and the Old Bull. He has a smile on his face; its one of his favourite anecdotes.

BurnzY calls his troops in, and gives them what for. John O Flynn has escaped lightly, Peter has forgotten the Dora The Explorer rucksack and he won’t have to play wearing it tonight. It may happen again. The message is simple – enjoy our softball, enjoy Batpak, the wins will come. We are Batpak, we are the Old Bulls. We are who we are.

The game starts and Batpak score 6 in the first. Great hits from Peter, Anne, Ben, Julie, Steve – including a magnificent HR from Julie. Carol crosses the plate after a triple from new boy John O, and we have the 6, batting through the order. A great start, the Old Bulls are up for it. Marlay reply with 2, and we’re at 6-2 end of 1. Peter and Anne score again in the second, and by end 2 the score is 8-3. Batpak are enjoying the game and the banter is flowing, it’s softball and it’s all good.

Carol, John O’ and Tom with his first longball of the night score in the third, and Marlay reply with 2. Julie hits another long shot and her dutiful husband follows her home to add 2 more in the fourth; Marlay have no reply and its 13-5 after the fourth. They have scored the last of their runs, but Batpak aren’t finished. More hits come from just about everyone and everywhere - Anne, Ben, Julie, Steve, John O’ and another big shot from Tom finish off the contest. Final score ends at 26-5.

Captain Burnzy thanks his squad – they have done him proud. They are Batpak, the Old Bulls. Softball and fun is back, and Batpak love it. Long may it last...

"Finally... it only took us 8 years"!!, one Marlay player after the final out.

On a sunny Tuesday evening in Marlay Park, The 'Pak lined out looking to chalk up another win. Aware of the Marlay potential we were warned by Skipper Pete that this would be no walk in the park and we would need to turn it on right from the start.

Oh dear God why didn't we listen to him..?

BatPak led off with a conservative one run in the first, thanks to the solid base hitting of Dave. Marlay matched this with 2 of their own. The next four innings saw the Pak knock in only a single run while Marlay kept the pressure on stringing hits together and taking advantage of extra bases gifted by costly errors in the field. By the 6th we were chasing a lead of 8 runs. After a rallying call by Pete, who pointed out that we've scored more than that in one inning before and now would be a nice time to try it again! We took to the plate to set things right. Unfortunately a further 2 runs was the best we could do. Marlay continued to chip away and deservedly came away with a 12-4 win.

And so our unbeaten run against Marlay came to a very ugly end. Not one of our finest displays, in fact probably one of our worst plate displays with only 8 hits in the entire game, 6 of them coming from Dave and Emma.

Some positives to take from the game...

1. Stephen Ralf from the Pakkers more than capably standing in and pitching a great game.
2. We could never suck that badly again!

BatPak have scored the most runs in the league and have the best runs difference (+60). We have everything to play for. So lets learn from this one, move onwards and upwards and mark this one off as a minor blip on an otherwise successful season.

Captain's MVPs
Male - Dave Pepper
Female - Emma Kilbride

Softball Ireland have announced the schedule for the Second Round of the Brian Walshe Cup, with BatPak's reward for defeating Marlay Mayhem in the First Round with a home tie against another Marlay team, the Mavericks.

Holders Ease Comfortably Through BWC First Round

A new softball season, but not much changed on Tuesday night in St. Anne's Park. The ever decreasing space in the park meant the two teams' warm-up was surrounded by under-7's hurling, over 25's (physical age, mental much less) GAA and the usual soccer training group acting tough by setting up camp in the outfield only to be convinced by a two or three fly balls whizzing past their ears to move.