Tyrone quartet going for All-Ireland gold….

Wednesday 03.04.2013

Club

Four Tyrone players will bid for one of the biggest prizes in handball this weekend, an All-Ireland championship winner’s medal.
The stakes will be very high for Breacach trio, Shane O’Neill, Barry Devlin and Eilise McCrory, and for Loughmacrory’s Lisa McAleer as the Tyrone quartet embark on the last leg of their 2013 championship journey, all hoping to complete a memorable campaign with the top honour in their respective competitions.
Opponents from Galway, Kildare, Kilkenny and Mayo will attempt to stop the Tyrone players returning home with the spoils and every final represents a difficult assignment for the O’Neill County.
Three of the fixtures will be staged in Kells, County Meath, with Shane O’Neill and Lisa McAleer in line to complete a very unique double on Saturday, as they set their sights on the mens and womens intermediate singles titles.
Only Ciaran Curran has previously managed to win the mens intermediate singles championship for Tyrone, while the ladies intermediate title has never been won by a Tyrone player.
Shane O’Neill will hope to go one step further than his clubmate Ruairi Kelly who came agonisingly close to the intermediate title against Clare’s Diarmaid Nash two years ago, and Shane is well capable of going all the way against Kildare’s rising star, Niall O’Connor, who won the national young handballer of the year award two seasons ago.
The Breacach man has already shown that he can compete well with players at the top level of the sport in Ireland, as he has competed admirably in the mens open competitions on numerous occasions. But the former All-Ireland junior singles champion, who registered an impressive semi-final win over Tipperary’s Ger Coonan three weeks ago, is now desperate to take this intermediate prize to officially take his place at the top table with the game’s elite players.
Lisa McAleer is in a similar position in the ladies intermediate division as she strives to become the first Tyrone player to officially join the top bracket of ladies handball.
Lisa has enjoyed a successful handball career so far but a win in this intermediate final would represent one of her biggest triumphs and she is more than capable of seeing off the strong challenge of Mayo’s Amy Corrigan, as she demonstrated in her impressive semi-final victory over Clare’s Lisa Loughnane.
Kells will again provide the setting as Tyrone’s Barry Devlin goes for gold on Sunday in the All-Ireland junior singles decider.
Barry has made giant strides in handball in the last couple of years and this title would represent another huge achievement for him. Having  defeated Monaghan’s Terry Kiernan and Cork’s Shane Hedigan in his last two outings, Barry has shown that he is ready to step up to the next level and he has a great chance of following in the footsteps of fellow breacach men, Niall Kerr, Ruairi Kelly and Shane O’Neill who have all captured this prestigious title in the past.
While Barry reached the mens b singles final at the world handball championships in October, his opponent this weekend, Kilkenny’s William Love, won the world c singles title after coming through a gruelling fixture schedule which involved almost 200 players.
The Leinster champion is clearly a very accomplished handballer who is on an upward curve and will take a lot of beating but the Tyrone representative will be a tough nut to crack.
Another Breacach player, Eilise McCrory, will be in Belfast this Saturday for her All-Ireland under-15 singles final against Galway. Eilise is the last Tyrone survivor in the 2013 All-Ireland juvenile championships and she is in with a great shout of taking the title, having already won an All-Ireland colleges winner’s medal earlier this year.
The young Tyrone star has been knocking on the door for the last few years and would be a very worthy All-Ireland champion should she manage to emerge victorious in Gort na Mona on Saturday.

All-Ireland championship final fixtures…

Saturday 6th April…
Under-15 girls singles final: Eilise McCrory (Tyrone) v Eimear Ní Bhiadha (Gaillimh) in Gort na Mona, Belfast, 12 noon
Intermediate singles final: Shane O’Neill (Tyrone) v Niall O’Connor (Kildare) in Kells, County Meath, 3pm
Ladies Intermediate final: Lisa McAleer (Tyrone) v Amy Corrigan (Mayo) in Kells, County Meath, 4pm

Sunday 7th April…
Junior singles final: Barry Devlin (Tyrone) v William Love (Kilkenny) in Kells, County Meath, 3pm