INDOOR BOWLS

Kildare West Wicklow Indoor Bowling Association (KWWIBA)

Straffan In House Bowling Tournament - he Straffan bowling club ran a bowling tournament among their members for a number of weeks and it concluded on Sunday, May 7.

This was a very competitive and hard fought encounter by all participants, with the eventual winners of Linda Daly and Joe Quinn having the bragging rights after seeing off some serious contenders. Congratulations to both.

Recent League Results (home team first) - Div. 1: Allen 5, Baltinglass 0; Brownstown 5, Kildangan 0; Kill CBC 2, Caragh 3; Kildare 5, Ardclough 0.

Div. 2: St. Laurences 3, Coill Dubh 2; Coill Dubh 3, Castlemitchell 2.

Div. 3: Rathmore 5, Naas 0; Kill 0, Balyna 5.

Bowling championship reaches conclusion - The bowling championship came to its conclusion in the Rathcoffey GAA Hall on Sunday, May 7, with a large attendance there to see the action. The following is just a snippet from the six different categories matches.

First Final In This Category For Both Players - Ladies-Singles: Rita O’Rourke (Ryston) and Phian Neylan (Rathangan) were the finalist in this match.

This was the first time for both of those players to reach the final. It was a very close game for a little over half the match, but from there to the finish it was the Rathangan lady that was in full control and won convincingly, Rita gave a good account of herself but nerves seemed to be a factor at times.

Rathangan Ladies Make It Three In A Row - Ladies-Pairs: Phian Neylan, Josie Deegan (Rathangan) and Phyllis Burke, Josie Garvey (Kill CBC) contested this final. This was the same opposition as the 2016 final.

It certainly proves the consistency of those players. Rathangan would be the slight favourites in this one, but would be expecting a tough battle.

But once again they showed how formidable opponents they are, as they coasted to an easy victory to make it three in a row.

Kehoe Succeeds At First Attempt - Open-Singles: John Kehoe (Baltinglass) and Mark Caldwell (Kildare) went head to head in this match.

A tough opponent for the Baltinglass man against the champion of two years ago, especially as this was his first time to reach the final.

John was in devastating form throughout this championship and continued in that vein in this match to see off the former champion to win the title on his first attempt.

No Losers For Kildare Club - Mixed Triples: No matter what the outcome of this match there would be no losers, as it was two Kildare teams contesting the final. Fintan Downey, Una Downey and Mark Caldwell were competing against club colleagues Margaret Gorry, Frank Connolly and Eddie Heffernan.

It was Mark’s team the honours go to, with an impressive performance, while Eddie’s team take the runners up prizes.

Rathmore Produce Impressive Display - pen-Pairs: The Rathmore husband and wife team of Helen and Frank Feane were pitted against Christy McDonald and Donal Burke from the Kill CBC club in this final.

The Rathmore pair produced an impressive display to send their opponents packing and take the title without too much difficulty.

First For Baltinglass - OpenFours: Baltinglass made no mistake in claiming the title for the first time with a fantastic display of bowling against Balyna.

Balyna appearing in the final for the first time certainly played some very good bowls, but inexperience probably cost them at times against a very experienced side, but no doubt they will have learned a lot from this game that will help them in the future.

Baltinglass: Joey Fagan, John Kehoe, Pat Brazil and Edward Lawrence.

Balyna: Tommy Grifferty, Eileen Grifferty, Paul Hillen and Frank Holden.

It has to be said that in both games every player played brilliantly.

The 15s put themselves back in contention for league honours with a 3-1 home win over table toppers Enniskerry.

Andrew McMahon helped himself to a fine hat-trick in a game where the team played some lovely football and where every player played his part.

If the team wins its remaining couple of games and other results go their way, well they could be celebrating in a couple of weeks (let’s hope so!).

All in the club send their best wishes to Frank Lang from the Under 9’s who had an operation last week to remove his appendix so he will be out of action for a while.

With the season drawing to a close we have set Saturday 1st July as the date for our presentation day.

We are planning to have a Mini World Cup back up and running after a number of years without one but to do all this we will need a little bit of help.

So if you are interested in football and can spare an hour or two every week leading up to finals day on the July 1 to do maybe a bit of refereeing etc it would be greatly appreciated.

Further details for the mini World Cup starting dates and events on the day of the presentation day will be announced shortly on our Twitter and Facebook pages.

We also have all our players out and about with sponsor cards (where players can purchase club gear depending on how much money they collect).

This is one of our main fundraisers so it would be great if we got loads of support, which to be fair we usually do. Well done to all our players who made their Holy Communion last Saturday and it was nice to see the rain stay away for the duration of the ceremony.

Also well done to all our players who acted as mascots and ball boys for Newtown United F.C. at the Wicklow Cup final in the Carlisle Grounds against Ashford Rovers. Ye all did a great job but unfortunately the result didn’t go our way as Ashford came from behind to take the cup. Hard luck Newtown.

The club would like to thank a few people, firstly a popular ex-gaffer in the club John Dalton for his kind donation. We also would like to thank Emma Kearney and Shayne Murphy from Snap Dun Laoghaire who sponsored the printing of our sponsor cards for our upcoming fundraiser. Many thanks Emma, Shayne and John from everyone at Newtown Juniors F.C.

We have three players from the club celebrating their birthdays in the coming week and they are Elijah Donnelly-Kelly from the Development Squad and Marcel Kocajda and Ryan Clarke from the under-13s. Happy birthday lads from everyone at Newtown Juniors F.C.

Our latest Last Man Standing competition will go into a Week 9 thanks to the “Champions League” chasing Arsenal. Eva & Katrina had pinned their hopes on them and they duly obliged with a 4-1 away win over Stoke City, “Girl Power” all the way. Many thanks to everyone for their continued support.

On a sadder note the club wish to extend their sincere condolences to the family & friends of Mollie Murphy who sadly passed away last week. May she rest in peace.

For further information on all matters “Newtown Juniors F.C.” please contact the Secretary at 0876987653 or by email to hughienolan@gmail.com & you can also follow the club on our Facebook & Twitter pages.