Sports

Clonlara 0-16 O’Callaghan’s Mills 0-15   CLONLARA scored their second win in this season’s Clare Champion Cup when they overcame O’Callaghan’s Mills at Kilkishen on Tuesday evening.The sides were evenly matched throughout and a draw looked the likely outcome for much of the tie.Clonlara, who were without the services of Darach Honan and the O’Donovan twins, Domhnall and Cormac, held a two-point advantage at half-time when the score was 0-9 to 0-7.O’Callaghan’s Mills didn’t call on any of their U-21 panel ahead of this weekend’s championship final against Ballyea.Nicky O’Connell and John Conlon were their chief scorers on the evening.Clonlara: Ger O’Connell; Senan Nihill, John Moloney, Paul Collins; Cillian Fennessy, Paul Nihill, Conor O’Shea; Tommy Lynch, Nicky O’Connell; John Conlon, Jason Murphy, Pat O’Hare; Colm Galvin, Tomas O’Donovan, Cathal O’Connell.Subs: Diarmuid O’Meara for Murphy and Oisín O’Brien for Galvin (inj).O’Callaghan’s Mills: John Cooney; Ger Frost, Conor Cooney, Damian Noonan; Conor Cooney (Elmhill), Bryan Donlon, Niall Donovan; Pat Donlon, Jonathon Lyons; …

  Feakle 3-8 Cratloe 0-16 UNLUCKY not to take at least a point from their opening tie against Clonlara a few weeks ago, Feakle showed that performance wasn’t a flash in the pan when they defeated a fancied Cratloe outfit on Sunday.To add to the losers’ woes, they finished with 14 men after John O’Gorman was dismissed shortly before the full-time whistle.Cratloe were without a number of regulars, including Barry Duggan and Conor Ryan, who were on duty with the Clare footballers in Wicklow, while Sean Chaplin and Ogie Murphy are currently sidelined due to injury.That said, they failed to get the upperhand on a committed Feakle outfit. The sides were level at half-time when the score was 1-7 to 0-10 and while the visitors won’t be too happy with the manner in which they conceded second-half goals, Feakle deserve credit for their play on a day when their goals came from Gary Guilfoyle, Donal O’Grady and Henry Hayes. Feakle: …

The way that the ladies national football league Division 3 has panned out, the semi-final is more important than the final. On Saturday at 2pm in Templetuohy, Tipperary, Clare play Wicklow for promotion to Division 2 and a crack at winning the Division 3 league title. Clare finished top of the group after six wins and a draw with Fermanagh in their last league game two weeks ago in Clarecastle.They recorded wins over Down, Leitrim, Wicklow, Limerick, Wexford and Longford. They played Wicklow in Bray on February 20, winning 1-17 to 2-10. Kilmihil’s Eimear Considine scored 1-6 that day, with Louise Henchy kicking 0-5 and Niamh O’Dea 0-4.Clare manager David O’Brien says that game was one that his team were quite lucky to win.“I thought it was probably the toughest match we had in the whole league. We were hoping to avoid them if we could. We think we’ve improved a lot since then but I’ve no doubt they’ll have …

Ballyea 5-7 Éire Óg 1-3 MISSED chances and some fine saves from Ballyea goalie, Suzie O’Shea denied Éire Óg the start they needed in this junior encounter. While play was not confined to the Éire Óg side of the pitch in the first half, Ballyea’s clinical precision in taking their scores was vital.The two yellow cards issued to Louise Kirwan and Shauna Keane at the end of the first half seemed to spur on Éire Óg, who started the brighter in the second half. A cracking goal from Louise Kirwan got the town side off to a great start. Points from Ruth Lillis and Orla McMahon set Éire Óg on a roll but two goals from Ballyea dashed their hopes of a clawback. Ballyea: Suzy O’Shea, Mairéad Longe, Emma Carey, Amy Pyne, Laurie Ryan, Ciara Phillips, Jane Flanagan (captain) (0-1), Catherine Dolan, Rebecca Culligan (0-1), Louise Griffin (0-2), Emma Duggan, Alison Carrig (1-1), Edel Hehir (4-1).Subs: Catriona Chambers for Laurie …

Corofin Harps 0 Burren Utd 1 BURREN United became the first team to reach the semi-finals of this year’s Clare Junior Cup when they came out on top against neighbours Corofin Harps at Corofin on Sunday.The all-important goal came with just 15 minutes to go when Martin McDonagh won possession from a Daniel Carey cross and got in behind the home side’s defence before shooting to the net.Corofin won’t have been happy with the manner in which they defended on this occasion. They thought they had equalised five minutes from the end, believing the ball had crossed the line but Craig Flanagan was adjudged to have saved on the line.In the first half, Burren missed a great chance to take the lead when Danny Burke failed to connect with a Patrick Darcy cross. Corofin Harps: Mike Heith; Stephen Quinn, Michael Concannon, John Keane, Brendan Neylon; James Keane, Ronnie Meere, Paul Linnane, Fergal Neylon, Jason O’Connor, Jason Tierney.Subs: Brendan Keane for …

Clarecastle’s Gearóid O’Loughlin had an afternoon to savour at last Sunday’s North Kerry Harriers’ point-to-point meeting at Ballybunion when registering his first win as a trainer with 10/1 shot Hello Mr Kelly in the second division of the six-year-old and upwards geldings’ maiden. O’Loughlin, whose uncle Ger ‘Sparrow’ O’Loughlin is currently Clare senior hurling manager, has ridden many winners over the past few seasons but he reached another milestone here when this first-time out son of Wizard King was successful at the sun-kissed Kingdom track. Always prominent, Hello Mr Kelly, who races in the colours of well-known Kildysart hunting enthusiast Aiden Kelly, moved to the front on the run to the final fence and, once safely over, ran on strongly to beat runner-up, Pretty Floyd, by four lengths. “It is fantastic to have trained my first winner,” O’Loughlin said. “This is a very nice horse and he has been working well at home over the past few weeks. Aidan Kelly …

A VERY impressive win for the Ennis-owned Peggy in an open 575 at Shelbourne Park, the Newmarket-on-Fergus-owned Nurse Jackie qualifying for the third round of the Red Mills Produce stakes in Clonmel  and the win for that great Ennistymon stalwart, Michael Marrinan, in Limerick last Saturday night were among the weekend highlights in greyhound racing from the Clare point to of view.Ennis owners, Martin Cronin and Jack Markham as well as Billy Murphy from O’Briensbridge and Colman O’Loughlin from Inagh added to the excitement with their Cragbrien Hondo, Coolready Shaun and Pal Duke winning the feature races over the three nights’ racing in Galway. Owned in Ennis by Frankie Sheehan and trained by Sixmilebridge man, Stephen Murray, Peggy was again in flying form in Shelbourne Park last Saturday in an 575 race for which Colourful Fox was sent off the warm 4/5 favourite from trap two. However, the favourite was very slow off the mark and in contrast, Peggy in …

The annual Ennis Junior Badminton Club Championships were completed over the weekend. The club’s two courts were in constant use throughout the weekend as the club’s emerging talent battled for junior titles. The tournament was co-ordinated and scheduled by junior badminton captain Hilary O’Sullivan and the committee.The results are listed below.U-11 Girls’ Singles: winner, Katie Browne; runner-up, Emer Murray.Boys’ Singles: winner, Aaron Moloney;  runner-up, Ronan Foley.Boys’ Doubles: winners, Aaron Moloney and Ronan Foley; runners up, Darragh Daly and Patrick Bugler.U-17 Division 1Girls’ Singles: winner, Sinéad Flynn; runner-up, Kate Bredin.U-13 Division 1Girls’ Singles: winner, Róisín Dwyer; runner-up, Karen MacNamara.Boys’ Singles: winner, Maurice Molloy; runner-up, Cathal Ruane. Girls’ Doubles: winners, Áine Ryan and Róisín Dwyer; runners-up, Karen MacNamara and Sally Molloy.Mixed Doubles: winners, Cathal Ruane and Karen MacNamara; runners-up, Maurice Molloy and Sally Molloy.U-13 Division 2Girls’ Singles: winner, Róisín Devane; runner-up, Siun Moran.Boys’ Singles: winner, DJ Keehan; runner-up, Daniel Jakab.Mixed Doubles: winner, DJ Keehan and Róisín Devane; runners-up, Oran Killeen and Siun …