Handball
Curraghboy Doubles
Curraghboy’s Seamus McHugh masterminded another very successful and hugely entertaining New Year Doubles tournament in his home court last Sunday.
Twelve teams from seven different counties competed and when the dust settled the Connemara partnership of Diarmuid Mulkerrins and Cian O’Conghaile won an incredible final where they recovered from a 23-30 defecit to win 31-30 against their neighbours Seamus Conneelly and Conor Noone.
The Plate competition for first round losers was won by the young Claremorris pair of Niall Joyce and Patrick Murphy who proved a little too fit for Crinkle veterans Conor O’Brien and Kevin Cooke, winning 25-20.
Elsewhere, the Carthy brothers, Rory and Eoghan, made the long journey to Liscarroll, Co. Cork over the Christmas period to take part in the annual 40×20 juvenile tournament there at U-13 grade.
Rory was impressive throughout and reached the semi-final where he lost a very good match to eventual winner, Cork’s experienced Hayden Supple 9-15, 9-15.
Eoghan, who will be underage again next year, was beaten in the first round by Wexford’s Nathan Sheehan-Conna in a tough encounter.
Darts
Christmas number 1!
Thomas Concannon won his first Christmas Singles title last Sunday after beating Mick Egan 7-6 in a thrilling final.
Thomas emerged from a field of 24, beating John McDermott, James Sharkey, David Concannon and Paul Carton on his way to the final.
Egan saw off Ken Turkington, Wayne Harries, Tony Connolly and Martin Fleming on the other side of the draw.
There was nothing between them in an excellent final and Concannon was forced to recover from a 5-3 deficit at one point to take a narrow win in dramatic circumstances.
With Mick sitting on 52, Thomas looked like he needed to take out 102 and nearly done so, narrowly missing double 16. But his chance wasn’t gone, two more missed match darts from Mick left Thomas with three darts at double 16, but he only needed one to clinch victory and his first Christmas Singles title.
Golf
Christmas Scramble
We begin the first round-up of the year in Boyle where the club’s Christmas Scramble was won by Terry Canning, John Joe Carty and Jim Callery.
Patrick Egan’s 40 points was enough to win the final competition of 2018, an 18-hole Stableford while Tommy King won the 18-hole Stableford on January 6th with 41 points.
To Athlone next where Frank McGowan Jnr’s team tops the gent’s Winter League with 572 points with Gerry Brennan’s team (562) in second place and Tom Boland’s (557) in third.
Recent winners in Athlone included Ray King (AWGS), Eoin Sheehy and Maeve Holmes (Gent’s and Ladies’ Christmas/New Year Opens), and Mark Conneely (Wednesday Open).
We finish in Carrick where Michael Foley won the Christmas competition with 26 points, just seeing off Kevin McDermott in second with 24.
