The Kingfisher Sports Hall in NUI, Galway was the venue for the first round of the MMA League this year. Saturday, March 6th, and a host of MMA fighters descended to get weighed in and begin creating their Irish Amateur MMA legacy. So too did Point Blank members Dom, Bobby, Connor, Mosi, Johnny, David, Gary, Mike and Sean, and right from the get go the lads started working to bring home as many points as they could. First out for PBS was Sean Conroy against fellow League veteran Paul Keenan. The pair began an energetic back and forth but the tussle was cut short when Paul inadvertantly struck Sean to the head (illegal at the league) and was disqualified. Over on the other ring Mosi made his debut against talented Spartan Northside grappler Sean McDermott. Though Mosi fought hard, he was never bale to settle in the match and it wound up not going his way. Mike took to the floor for his first match, that was going well for the talented lightweight, but he was to be denied points on this occasion, falling foul to a well taken guillotine from Uli Stanke. Both Sean and Mike came back for their second matches fiercely determined and their efforts paid dividends, netting draws from their second matches.

Gary was in centre stage over on ring two but found it hard to generate momentum against the very strong Wexford MMA fighter Michael Skrajny. The pair were the only veterans in the welterweight division and as such had to fight each other. When Gary's opportunity to wipe the slate clean came he took it in spades, keeping Skrajny on the back foot for the majority of the match, and being inches from finishing an arm bar as the bell went. Connor McNevin's first match of the tournament in a hard fought draw, Connor was in the ascendancy for most of the match, but couldn't convert his takedowns and positional dominance into a submission. His second outing was against one of the most experienced teen grapplers in the League, Karl Redmond. Connor fought well against the veteran from SBG, but fell foul to a triangle administered by the long legs of Redmond. Despite being trapped inside a tight submission for almost a minute Connor refused to give up and continued repeated escape attempts until the very end.

Bobby returned to the teen division as reigning champion from 2009, but found immediately that the going would be even tougher this year. Though he took back to back wins in his two fights, both were hard fought and close to the end. Bobby was his usual picture of calm in the sea of contained violence however and calmly worked through technique after technique until he got the wins. Sean Conroy's second match was against Pankration standout Dave McNamara, Dave is no stranger to us in Point Blank as he often attends the Saturday sparring classes. Sean worked dilligently to secure a takedown, but for most of the round Dave defended while peppering back leg kicks and punches. Sean demonstrated the composure of a League veteran and didn't flinch once; when he found himself taken down and mounted he continued working hard until he had the position reversed and could mount some offence from on top. Time became the enemy however as there was nothing left on the clock at this point. A determined and solid performance from Sean though, and a great result against a fighter like Dave.

Rounding out the day for Point Blank were Johnny and David, Johnny netted the coveted three points from Tom Hogan in his first outing, Tom actually did the beginners course in Point Blank so it seemed very Civil War esque when the two fought, Johnny's second match didn't go as he had hoped, an early takedwon had him on his back for a large stretch of the opening minutes, and when he reversed to take top his momentum had been robbed. He fell foul to a submission late in the match after a goal mouth to goal mouth struggle that either man could have taken. David Mullen's introduction to the League was a high intensity battle with reversals and position changes enough to make it reminiscent of a BJ Penn match. Though he had the momentum numerous times, he oculdn't manage to steal a submission from under his opponent finishing with a draw.

A great day for Point Blank all around, lots of things to work on, but generally a tremendous performance from our lads, well done guys!