Disappointment for title chasing clubs

IT proved to be a bad weekend in Tipperary for the Kerry teams chasing Munster titles with all three coming away empty-handed.

At Thurles Golf Club on Saturday, defending All-Ireland champions Ballybunion were first into action in the Junior Cup semi-final against Shannon and in a dramatic finish, the North Kerry club edged home on the nineteenth hole of the deciding match.

Shannon took the top two matches where Neil O’Brien beat Barry O’Callaghan by 4/2 and Keith Buckley beat Adrian Walsh by 3/2 but back came Ballybunion with Frank Geary taking the fifth match against Liam Lenihan by 5/4 and Ronan Cross taking the third game by a two-hole margin.

The overall outcome came down to the game involving Ballybunion’s Brian Slattery and Shannon’s Jim O’Grady which was a tight affair throughout with little between both players but a birdie from Slattery on the first tie hole saw Ballybunion through to the afternoon final against Clonmel who beat Kinsale in the other semi-final.

The Ballybunion management made two changes to the team for the final bringing in teenagers Edmond Healy and James O’Callaghan for Barry O’Callaghan and Adrian Walsh and at the half-way stage of the final it looked like Ballybunion would retain their provincial title as they were well ahead in three of the five games.

Edmund Healy delivered the top match beating Billy Hewitt 2/1 and Frank Geary once again delivered at number five, beating Denis Conway 3/2, but Clonmel took matches two and four where Brian McClean beat Ronan Cross (1 up) and Jack Alton beat Brian Slattery (1 up) it all came down to the third game where Ballybunion’s James O’Callaghan and Darragh Lynch finished all-square after eighteen before the Clonmel man won it on the nineteenth.

Tralee’s Senior Cup team were up against a very fancied Castletroy side in the Senior Cup semi-final also on Saturday morning, and the Limerick club were fast out of the traps taking the top two matches, where Andrew McCormack beat Eoin Goggin 4/3 and Eamon Haugh beat Darren O’Sullivan on the eighteenth.

Eoghan O’Donnell however put Tralee’s first point on the board with a 5/3 win over Dean McMahon and

Fergal O’Sullivan beat Stephen Moloney 2up in the fourth match to level it at two-apiece before Anton O’Callaghan beat Jason Tobin on the final green to edge Tralee into the final against Dungarvan who beat Monkstown in the other semi-final.

For the afternoon, Tralee brought in Mark Leahy in place of Eoin Goggin at number one, but the final proved to be a one-sided affair.

Leahy went down to Alan Thomas by 3/2 in match number one while Eoghan O’Donnell was beaten in match number three at the seventeenth and Danny Raher wrapped it up for Dungarvan beating Anton O’Callaghan 5/4 in the final game with the two O’Sullivan’s Fergal and Darren called in as Dungarvan took the title to crown a miserable day for Kerry in Thurles.

On Monday morning, Ballybunion’s Fred Daly team were in action in the Munster semi-finals at Nenagh where they faced a Dungarvan side that included two of their Munster title winning Senior Cup team from Saturday.

The Waterford side raced into an early lead in the first four matches and were four up, two up, three up and one up after seven holes played.

They proved to be uncatchable in the end, winning matches one, three and four, all at the fifteenth hole.

James O’Callaghan was one up after seventeen in match two and Mark Galvin was four up with four to play in match five when called in, so for the second year in a row, Ballybunion exit the Fred Daly at the Munster semi-final stage to bring the curtain down on a miserable weekend in Tipperary, but with three of the side eligible again for next year, surely their turn will come?