All Ireland title for Sligo handball duo
HANDBALLERS, Michael Murphy and Michael McMorrow claimed an all too rare all-Ireland 40x20 title for Sligo when then defeated Wexford duo, Brendan Murphy and Miley Byrne in the Diamond Masters B doubles final at Kingscourt last weekend.
Having accounted for a fancied Limerick duo in two games in the semi-final three weeks ago at Claregalway, Murphy and McMorrow were in confident mood going into Sunday’s afternoon’s showdown.
It was clear from the early exchanges in the opening game that the Wexford pair were very effective at putting the ball out of reach given any opportunities so the Sligo tactic was to keep the ball out to the back of the court as much as possible.
McMorrow was particularly effective in this regard with some great roof shots which Byrne struggled to deal with while Murphy on the left took any much of the play from the back of the court. The Sligo men took the opening game comfortably on a 21 aces to 7 scoreline,
The second game was a much closer affair as Byrne and Murphy made a real fight of it with aces were had to come. It was level-pegging at 6 all, 8 all and 13 all.
Thanks to some fine serving by McMorrow and clinical finishing by Murphy the Sligo pair led by four aces at 17-13 and limited Wexford to just one ace on their next serve as Murphy and McMorrow finished matters off to clinch this game and the match 21 aces to 14.
The Yeats men put in a lot of hours of training ahead of the final and it paid off and the title was due compensation for Murphy who narrowly lost out in the singles final of the same grade last month to Brian Havern of Down.
The feature event of the weekend’s 40x20 finals saw Clare’s, Diarmuid Nash and Colin Crehan record a well-merited victory over eleven-time champions Paul Brady and Michael Finnegan of Cavan in a thrilling men’s senior doubles final in three games.
The Clare duo went one better than last year against the same opposition to win their first ever title which was seen very much seen as a victory of youth over experience.