Southern Classic success for McCarthy in gripping final

The Southern Classic Men’s Open ranking event was held in Cork over the weekend. Mullingar's Robbie McCarthy stormed his way to the final with some very comfortable wins, defeating Sean Kerr 15-1, 15-0; Gavin Coyle 15-3, 15-4; Daniel Relihan 15-10, 15-3.

Robbie was pretty comfortable in the first game of the final against Diarmuid Nash (Clare) but there were some great rallies from two of the best handball players around. It was a super crowd pleaser that finished up 15-13. Nash put the pressure on in game two and Robbie well able to keep his cool, came back from 14-7 down to win game two 15-14 and take home the Michael Jordan Cup for a second year running. At number one the ranking chart, it places Robbie in a great position for the start of championship. Massive congratulations to Robbie on another successful weekend.

She’s Ace ladies festival

While the men were down in Cork, the ladies took over in Croke Park for the weekend. The club had a number of players competing in the festival weekend which included both 40x20 and One Wall codes.

County Intermediate player, Fiona Staunton came up trumps winning all three of her doubles team events. Fiona teamed up with her daughter Alanna in the mother/daughter doubles event and was narrowly defeated in a 21-20 quarter final. Alanna took part in the U11 40x20 on Saturday winning two of her three matches with some super serving and great rallies. She certainly did us proud.

The Sunday One Wall event started out with three of our U11 ladies competing in the U11 One Wall fun event. Alanna won her match 15-9 and came second in her division. Ziva and Fionnuala played three amazing matches and had a ball of fun meeting the other ladies in their division. Both players each won a match in their division with some amazing serves on the day. All of our U11 ladies should be super proud of themselves; it’s a massive achievement to represent the club in Croke Park and do so well.

Once our U11s finished up, we changed our focus to a group of Mothers and Others, who started with us in November as a way to keep fit during the off season from their football. They all competed in the ladies challenger, and we must say they did both us and their football club, Mullingar Shamrocks, very proud.

To play against ladies who have played for up to two years and still come out with high scores such as 21-16, 21-13 and 21-17 is absolutely amazing.

Well done to each and every one of the ladies, Laura, Katie, Anne, Avrial, Ilana, Bríd and Kacie (our chief supporter and motivator in the club) who played super handball all weekend.