Get Insanely Competitive With Your Mates At This Dublin Spot

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Getting the upper hand over your mates as an adult usually means being the last one standing after a lethal night out.

But now there’s an easier way to prove you’re the champ of your group — with actual sports.

Walking into Skill Zone is a bit like all of your Christmases come at once, for a sports fan, because it’s a leisure space totally and completely devoted to your pleasure.

It’s basically a circuit — the first multi-sport one in Dublin — and there are 10 separate zones for you to get to grips with.

The massive building includes a load of overgrown kids having a blast — you have to be 10 years or older to get in, and once you’ve tried the challenges, you’ll see why.

A full circuit of the centre lasts up to 90 minutes, which is some heavy action — and you get 1-12 attempts at each sport.

Trust us, by the time you’re done, you’ll bloody feel it.

Each zone has a set task for you to excel at:

Baseball: You’ve 12 chances to swing for softballs flying at 50mph plus
Basketball: you have 10 hoop shots from 4.6 metres — just like the NBA pros
Climbing: A see-through 6m climbing wall means you can race against your mates or time
Gaelic football: You have 10 attempts to get the ball between the sticks
Golf: Can you chip a ball into the hole from 9 yds?
Hang: Literally dangling off bars until your arms are aching, you’ve got to last 3 minutes — last man wins
Rugby: There are 8 attempts to stick the ball between the posts — drop goal or place kick
Shooting: The state-of-the-art interactive shooting game uses real .22 rifles to hit your target
Soccer: A nerve-wrecking penalty shoot out — 10 pens, 4 targets, 12 yds…
Tennis: Another automated machine fires tennis balls at 50mph plus — and all you have to do is return with interest!

Even if you’re not against your pals, you can still come solo and challenge for the Skill Zone top 10 score board.

Kick off, let loose, forget about work and lose yourself in the rush of good, clean competition.

Whether swinging (badly, in our case) for the ball in the batting cages, dangling in the Hang Zone like a monkey with overstretched limbs or trying — and resolutely failing — to get any of the 10 shots in the Basketball Zone into the nets, you’re definitely going to look like an eejit.

And it’s more fun for it.

Getting yourself into the spirit of competition is always a great buzz, and doing it with mates is guaranteed to give you a good laugh — without a drop of the drink taken.