In the end the two award winners were Caolan Daly and Sean Kerr, who were recognised as the handballer of the year and young player of the year respectively.

Caolan, world under-23 silver medallist, saw off the strong challenge of Brackey’s Barry Devlin and Loughmacrory’s Ciaran Curran to collect the overall handballer of the year prize, while Sean Kerr completed a magnificent twelve months by pipping Maeve McElduff to the young player award.

Meanwhile, there was to be no silverware for any of the Tyrone teams particpating in the All-Ireland club championship weekend in Galway, with Brackey’s junior team coming closest to going all the way as they reached the national final before losing narrowly to Cork representatives Ballydesmond.

The young Brackey team of Conor McElduff, Johnny Woods, Pol Clarke and Gabhainn McCrsytall performed really well to qualify for the decider and they made a bold bid to claim the honours before eventually going down to Ballydesmond on a scoreline of 36-26.

Brackey’s intermediate team of Ruairi Kelly, Shane O’Neill, Barry Devlin and Barney Corcoran found themselves up against a strong Williamstown team in the Galway club’s home court and were beaten 39-20 by the eventual title winners.

Loughmacrory took on Kells from Meath in the All-Ireland junior B section and the four man team of Finbarr Fullen, Kenny Curran, Joseph Kellly and Paul Donnelly led for most of the way but were eventually caught and suffered a 48-44 defeat.

Closer to home, there are a few changes to the forthcoming schedule in Tyrone, with the AGM now taking place next Wednesday night in Beragh at 8.30pm.

That meeting will also be the new and final deadline for all county championship entries, with the county adult championships now set to be staged over the first three weekends of January in preparation for the Ulster championships. The Tyrone juvenile championships will commence closer to the end of January.