Clare’s Leah Minogue and Amber Nolan captured the Junior Ladies doubles crown after beating their Wexford opponents in Croke Park.
It took a tie-breaker to decide it with the Clare duo winning 21-8, 14-21, 11-5.
Colin Crehan and Diarmaid Nash just came up short in their All Ireland Senior Men’s final, as the defending champions lost out to Cork.
Clare handball Round-up
As handball season training wise for the majority comes to a close many clubs are hosting tournaments for young and adult players.
Kilkishen have over the last four weeks held their Parish leagues. This brings together children in teams from 10 -15 years of age and provides great fun, training and introduces some to games. Also having club fun blites with the 8-10 yr old players
Clooney begin their Parish league on Monday 11th and this will run mid week every evening for two weeks to get to final stage.
Tulla have also commenced Parish league for children in mixed teams 11-16yrs
Tuamgraney will host an adult tournament for players within the club for the MacLysaght Cup.
The MacLysaght Cup is 75 years old this year, making it one of (if not the) oldest handball club tournaments in Ireland and this year’s edition takes place Bank Holiday Monday 18th March, starting from 11.00am.
The cup was donated to Tuamgraney Handball Club by the late Edward MacLysaght, on whose grounds the handball alley was built, and it was first played for in 1949. The MacLysaght family have always had very strong ties to the handball club. Edward’s late son William was Honourary President of the club for many years, a position now held by William’s son Cian.
For decades the best handballers in Tuamgraney and the surrounding community have fought for the honour of being MacLysaght Cup Champion, from the very first winners John & Peter Tuohy, on through the era of the famous Kirby brothers right up to the likes of Haulie Hogan, PJ Counihan and more recent winners like Diarmaid Nash & current holder Conor Downes.
County, Munster and All-Ireland champions will be on show on Monday and this year for the first time our Ladies players are included and will be looking to be the first female winner of the MacLysaght Cup in its 75-year history. There will also be a drop-down Plate competition. All support welcome on the day.
Tuamgraney Handball Club’s annual fundraising 10km Sponsored Walk/Run takes place on Easter Monday April 1st at 12pm. All support greatly appreciated and everyone is welcome to take part.
Club Adult Singles and Doubles Competitions
This is the first year for the County to run this event. With 25 entered in singles and 12 pairs in doubles, there is no shortage of games for club players. There is great interest in this and with groups divided into mixed ability it is introducing new players to each other and building links.
The competition will be run over 5 weeks and finals will be in 3 divisions which will see the return of players to equal grades – bar an upset, which is always on the cards.
Diarmaid Nash will begin his singles championship on Monday March 18th, he waits on the winners of round 1 to know his opponent, Rory Grace, Tipperary and Tyrone’s Barry Devlin will play March 16th with the winner against Nash.
Ladies Singles also commences with Leah Minogue fresh from doubles success in Senior action on Thursday 14th 2pm in Claregalway against one half of the Senior doubles winners in Niamh Heffernan.
Amber Nolan will hope to continue her good run of form in the Junior Singles with an opening day outing in Cashel against Wexford’s, Cora Doyle. Also on March 16th Chloe Philpott of Kilkishen will travel to Nenagh against Limerick’s Aishling Shannahan
In Tuamgraney on Saturday Limerick’s Evan Murphy will play Galway’s Seamus Conneely.