Late change to Barton Shield
THE Barton Shield which is the final event in the GUI Cups and Shields, gets underway next weekend at Doneraile and following the withdrawal of Waterville, Ceann Sibéal and most recently Glengarriff there is a change to the schedule and a motion proposed by the Munster Branch and passed at last November’s Annual delegates meeting, now comes into play.
The motion states: “In the event of a team withdrawing from a Round 2 match, having received a bye in the original draw, where time permits the draw for that venue will be revised as follows: Round 1 match on top of draw will be cancelled and the two teams from that match will be allocated places in Round 2 e.g. Team A go directly to Round 2 as if they had won their Round 1 match. Team B will replace the team which has withdrawn”.
The rationale behind this is that the team receiving the walkover previously would go directly to Round 3, in effect giving them two byes whereas other teams at the venue would have to play either one or two matches to progress to Round 3 and this system achieves a balance in the number of matches each team has to play to progress beyond Round 2 and removes the advantage in favour of one team over the other teams at the venue.
So here is the revised draw for Saturday: Hosts Doneraile will now play Tralee at 10am followed by Newcastlewest versus Killarney at 10.20am, Kenmare versus Ballybunion at 10.40am and Dooks versus Kanturk at 11am.
So, for my famous predictions, Tralee are last year’s Munster champions and All-Ireland semi-finalists, so I see them beating Doneraile and I also see wins for Ballybunion over Kenmare, Killarney over Newcastlewest and Dook over Kanturk.
On Sunday morning if my predictions are correct, it’s Tralee versus Killarney at 9am and Ballybunion versus Dooks at 9.20 and I can see Tralee and Ballybunion qualifying for the afternoon’s final with Ballybunion getting through, but then, am I ever right?
Munster Boys Championship
THE Munster Boys is at the picturesque Waterford Castle course this week where seven Kerry boys compete.
The Ballybunion trio of James O’Callaghan, Phillip Byrne and Edmund Healy are joined in the field by Conor Hickey and Daniel McGillycuddy of Dooks, Tralee’s Mark Leahy and Killarney’s Luke Walsh to make up the Kerry contingent.
One other player who may arouse interest this week is 18-year-old Killian McGinley, the son of former Ryder Cup Captain Paul McGinley who is a two-handicapper playing out of Sunningdale.
The Munster selectors are apparently waiting for this championship to end before announcing the teams for the forthcoming Under-Age Inter-Provincials at Slieve Russell in County Cavan.
This appears to me to be very strange, as those in contention for places have all been attending coaching sessions for the past number of months under the eyes of the selectors and have already played several championships this season.
Waiting to announce the teams just eleven days before the Inter-Provincials begin with no practice rounds played at Slieve Russell when the other three provinces have announced their line-ups and already practiced there, just doesn’t make any sense.
Coote Wins Category at Enniscrone
TRALEE’S former Irish Seniors International Michael Coote with rounds of 74,77 and 73 finished in sixth place at the Irish seniors Championship at Enniscrone last week and his total of 224 was enough to win him the Over 65s category, while Ballybunion’s Peter Sheehan playing in his first-ever Irish seniors Championship, finished in a very credible tie for ninth place.
Had it not been for his two opening rounds of 80 and 79, Sheehan may well have finished in a much higher position after his superb third round of five-under par 68 which included six birdies over the fabled County Sligo links.