Golden week for handballers Lynch and O’Shea

GLENBEIGH’S Dominic Lynch and Jack O’Shea made the long trip to the Golden Gloves tournament in Belfast a winning one.

First up for Lynch was Martin Mulkerrins of Galway in the Last 16 of the Men’s Open competition in what turned out to be a thrilling battle. Lynch got off to a great start leading 9-4 early on and pushed on to take the first game 15-12.

Mulkerrins tied the match winning the second game 15-10 despite a good rally by Lynch and the Galway man took the win in the decider 11-6.

This sent Lynch into the Men’s Open Plate and he brought this trophy back to Kerry with him. He defeated Cork’s Daniel Relihan in the semi-final 15-6 and 15-5 and then saw off CJ Fitzpatrick from Limerick 15-14, 10-15, 11-10 in one of the games of the weekend.

After two great games the title looked to be heading the way of the Limerick man as he lead 7-3 but Lynch showed his class once again and his killing of the ball proved to be the difference as he rallied to lead 10-7. However CJ hit back again to tie the game at 10 all. Lynch showed all his composure to win the title with an ace at the fourth time of asking.

Jack O’Shea certainly earned his Men’s B trophy coming through four tough games. He knocked out Denis Creaton from Roscommon 15-10, 15-4 and then continued his great from in the quarter-final against Louth’s Ben Devlin 15-4, 15-6.

The first game in the semi-final against James Gavaghan from Monaghan was a tight affair with the Kerry man winning 15-14. However Jack was in control in the second game winning 15-4.

Onto the final and there was always only going to be one winner as O’Shea was in sublime form and took care of Mayo’s Ciaran Burke 15-3, 15-3 to wrap up a great weekend for both players with two more national handball trophies back in the Kingdom.