Perfect Pats prove too strong at home
SUNDAY last saw the second day of the National Indoor Tug of War Championships take place in Carrickmacross.
The main event here was the Senior Men’s 680kg Championship, as the winner and runner up of this event qualified to represent Ireland at the British and Irish Championships in Mayo in February 2017.
The Men’s 680kg was first on the mats with eight teams competing - St. Pats, Ballinastoe, Clonmany, Cuan Rithe, Gort na Cloiche, Kiltevna, Mountain View, Stapletons & Taughmaconnell. Competition was held on a round robin basis with the top four going through to the semifinal.
After a very tough and intense competition, St. Pats won through to gain a place in the semi-final, where they were joined by Clonmany, Mountain View and Cuan Rithe. The semi-final saw St. Pats easily beat Cuan Rithe two pulls straight.
Clonmany and Mountain View battled it out in a great match in their semi-final, which went to three ends, with Clonmany edging a lead, winning two ends to one.
In the final, St. Pats were much too strong for Clonmany, once again winning two pulls to zero, and took the title of National 680kg Champions, to add to the 720kg National title won a fortnight ago.
St. Pats will now represent Ireland at the British and Irish Championships in Mayo next year.
This competition was followed by the Men’s 425kg 5-aside, eight teams contested this competition and so were split into two groups for the round-robin section. After the preliminary rounds took place, St. Pats emerged unbeaten to face Cuan Rithe in the final.
St. Pats duly won two ends straight to lift the National 425kg title, and so have made another clean sweep of Men’s National titles on this second day of Championships.
Next up was round two of the three National leagues that are being contested as part of the
Championships; the Women’s 540kg, the Women’s 5-a-side 340kg and the Mixed 600kg. The leagues are being contested over three rounds.
First to the mats was the Wom- en’s 540kg league and here St. Pats beat a strong B&K team, making it two wins out of two. Subsequent to this was the Women’s 5-aside 340kg, where St. Pats were challenged by B&K A team and B&K B team.
Again, St. Pats proved too strong for both B&K teams and so recorded their second win. Last up was the Mixed 600kg and again, St. Pats defeated all competition - thus emulating the competition from a fortnight ago, by winning all the competitions of the day.
With St. Pats topping the table in all three leagues in the first two rounds, this leaves them unbeatable in the third round, and so the other teams will duke it out for second and third places.
The panel on Sunday was - Coach Hugh Mór, Michael Owen McGreehan, PJ Griffin, Sean Conway, Gary Conway, Hugh Óg Conway, Tom Griffin, Declan Griffin, Damian Rafferty, Warren Conway, Timmy Kelliher, Paul Goodwin, Liam Fitzpatrick, Padraic Kellett, Katherina Griffin, Yvonne McEntee, Carla Fitzpatrick, Rita O’Toole, Sorcha Bayle, Emma Fitzpatrick, Helen Coyne and Aoife Mulligan .
Next on the agenda for St. Pats is the third round of the Championships - the National Senior Men’s 640kg & 5-a-side 400kg Championships and the completion of the Women’s and Mixed Leagues. St. Pats will be going all out to maintain their winning run in Lordship.