It’s been another fine year for NI stars, and our readers have taken to www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk to vote for their highlights. the results

Down reaching the final was something of a surprise, and it would have been a fairytale had they managed to become Ulster champions, but at the end of the day it was the juggernaut that is Tyrone who swept to the title, winning 2-17 to 0-15 in Clones. They successfully defended the title they won in 2016 and made ade it 15 Championship wins in all, with attacker Ronan O’Neill scorcoring both of their goals.

Having seen Carl Frampton ton dominate the Northern Ireland and boxing scene for years, Ryan yan Burnett finally stepped outt of his shadow and into the spotpotlight. Having won the IBF world orld title against Lee Haskins in June, une, Burnett was irresistible when he welcomed Kazakh fighter Zhahakiyanov to the SSE Arena andand beat him by unanimous deciecision to unify the IBF and WBA belts. The only way is up for the 25-year-old.

England came into this Six Nations clash looking to secure both a second successive Grand Slam and also set the record for the most consecutive Test victories. In the end, they’d achieve neither. Ireland blitzed them in Dublin and walked away with a gutsy victory, with Ulster lock Iain Henderson’s first-half try t he di f - ference between the sides. England’s win- ning streak was ended at 18, tied

with the All Blacks who, incidentally, also had their winning streak snapped by Ireland.

When a team need a big performance, the big players make themselves known, and that’s certainly what Andy Waterworth did on this occasion for Linfield. Having surpassed Crusaders in the league standings a week previous, the Irish League veteran came up big on the final day of the season with a hat-trick in a 3-1 win at Cliftonville to lift the Gibson Cup, before doing the same in the 3- 0 Irish Cup final win over Coleraine a week later as the Blues completed the treble.