McElduff and Casey claim Open gold at Lough One Wall Showdown

The annual Lough 1Wall GAA Handball Showdown attracted another bumper entry of both players and spectators as a feast of just over 300 matches went ahead at the impressive Loughmacrory One Walls Arena in county Tyrone.

In the end the event climaxed with Mens and Ladies Open title wins for recently crowned Irish Open champions, Tyrone’s Conor McElduff and Cork’s Catriona Casey. The number one seeds were pre Tournament favourites to prevail but in both finals the Team Ireland representatives were tested to the limits by Monaghan’s Darren Doherty and Down’s Lorraine Havern respectively.

In the Mens Open, McElduff, who had lost the inaugural Showdown final in 2014 to Puerto Rico’s Wally Amaro, had come through comfortable wins against Longford’s Niall Flynn and Down’s Sean Digney. Darren Doherty negotiated his path to the final with victories against Tyrone Barry Devlin and Johnny Woods, the latter providing a pulsating contest for the packed arena, with Doherty coming out on top by 5-4 in the tie-break. The final possibly did not go to script though as the Monaghan player, recent winner of the Irish Nationals 19 & Under title, delivered a series of exceptional kill-shots and deep lobs and he stormed into a 18-6 lead with 11 minutes played. The massive crowd however began to spring to life as McElduff then staged a dramatic comeback as he firstly cut away at the deficit and then garnered a huge roar when he drew level at 18-18 with the game entering the final four minutes of play. The rallies remained finely balance at that stage but the Irish number one was now very much on the ascendancy in terms of his retrieving and precise angled corner killshots. Doherty continued to battle for every point but it was McElduff who added the prestigious Lough Showdown Cup to his impressive One Wall CV with a 26-19 victory.

The Ladies Open final at the Showdown tournament brought a repeat of the 2015 One Wall Nationals Final as Down’s Lorraine Havern attempted to reverse the form of her loss to Catriona Casey from two weeks earlier. For large periods of the final in Loughmacrory it appeared as though the Saval player was in line to do just that as she held leads at 8-4, 11-6 and 16-10. However, Catriona Casey has well and truly emblazoned her reputation as a player who is relentless under pressure and when matches get to the business end of play. As the match entered the final five minutes, Casey had moved Havern back into deep court with high perfect drive shots to the back corners an that proved decisive as she went on to claim her second Lough Showdown title with a 24-20 victory.

There was unquestionably a festival of GAA Handball action at the very popular lakeside venue over the three day Tournament as 234 players from over 20 counties took to the four courts of play. At girls junior level there were title wins for Armagh’s Megan McCann and Galway’s Niamh Heffernan, who were repeating their Irish Nationals 15 & 13 grade wins respectively. Tyrone’s Clodagh Munroe and Loughmacrory’s Dearbhail Fox and Tara Curran claimed the under-age silverware at 11s and Under 10. In the boys grades there was the possibly the match of the tournament in the 11& Under grade as Loughmacrory’s Eoin McElholm edged out Armagh’s Fiachra Ó Dhuill by 19-18 while Breacach’s Sean Kerr (17&U), Loughmacrory’s Antoin Fox (15&U), Galway’s Jason O’Toole (13&U) and the host club’s Ruairi McCullagh and Eoin Donaghy (U10) were the other junior winners.

In the adult grades, Armagh’s James Doyle came away with the Mens A crown, 15 year old Cormac Munroe (Carrickmore) won the Mens B title, Breacach’s Aaron Owens secured the Mens C title, Spillane Martin was the Mens Challenger winner and Carrickmore’s Jerry Keenan took the Mens Contender honours. At Masters level, Breacach’s Eamon McCrory picked up the 35+ prize with Loughmacrory’s Finbarr Fullen (45+) and Down’s Brian Havern (55+) the other winners on finals day.

Next up for the majority of players at the weekend Showdown Tournament will be the World Handball Championships in Canada in August. Conor McElduff and Catriona Casey will be the chief flag-bearers for Ireland there in the One Wall grades but on the evidence of the weekend one wall action, a host of Irish players could be very much dreaming of world’s gold in just over three weeks time.