Sports

THE Golden Vale Clare Community Games competitions for 2011 got underway at the weekend when the indoor soccer was played at Corofin.

CBS Ennistymon U-19 basketball had a comfortable 54 to 27 victory over St Colmcille (Ballyshannon) in their first play-off game in Ennistymon on Saturday last in the National Colleges U-19 basketball competition. In the second game, they squared up to a very determined Castleblaney team and only two points separated the sides at the end of the third quarter. Ennistymon racked up a 10-point gap in the fourth, thanks to some tremendous work from the Kinch brothers, to give CBS a comfortable win 47 to 32.St Joe’s (Derry) were next up and were very impressive in their previous two games. Derry got off to  a lightning start and were dominating the rebounds offensively and defensively and led at half-time 32 to18. In the third quarter, Ennistymon started to get the ball inside to their big boys, Ciarán Devitt and Ronan Linnane, and both stepped up to the mark contributing 14 points between them. In the fourth quarter, the crowd were …

St Senan’s 29   Ballincollig 9 In this tense Division 1 bottom-of-the-table clash between two teams who needed a victory to give them a chance of avoiding relegation, the Clare side came out on top.Both teams started with some nervous play that saw a few early errors and infringements. It was Ballincollig who benefited first when they won and converted a penalty after just four minutes to take the lead.

Clare athletes took home several medals from the Athletics Association of Ireland juvenile B cross country U-11 to U-19s plus inter-county relays for U-12s and U-14s, plus intermediate and masters men’s and ladies’ championships, which were held in Alsaa, Dublin, on Sunday.

The weather proved a real spoilsport last Sunday with the Clare Hunt point-to-point meeting scheduled for Belharbour having to be postponed following a prolonged spell of heavy rain. 

Kerry 0-13 Clare 1-7 Better that Clare received an alarm call last Saturday in Killarney than next Sunday in Carrick-on-Shannon. That’s one of the few pluses the county footballers took home from the 2011 McGrath Cup final. Don’t take too much notice of the final scoreline. Clare were outplayed in most sectors and could have lost by up to 10 points. as Kerry kicked a dozen wides and were without several of last year’s championship panel. Gary Brennan was definitely a huge loss to Clare, though. Without the Clondegad midfielder, they were totally outplayed in that sector, where only Cathal O’Connor made any inroads. Of equal concern was the manner in which the Clare attack malfunctioned. David Tubridy, Rory Donnelly and Alan Clohessy found that the Kerry full-back line was a much hardier line than what they had encountered recently from UCC, CIT and Waterford. That said, the quality of ball kicked into them was very poor. It was often …

Waterford 2-19 Clare 2-18 When Clare went to the half time break in Sunday’s Waterford Crystal senior hurling tournament semi-final with an 11-point lead, the odds suggested that they were on their way to next weekend’s final. Midway through the second half, the picture had taken a dramatic turn and it was clear that the home side would struggle to finish on top. They failed to match the commitment of the visitors in the second half and, more accurately, to deal with the threat of Seamus Prendergast after he moved to full-forward when the teams came out for the resumption of play.The physically strong Waterford man caused a lot of problems for both Cian Dillon and James McInerney and his ability to win possession led to a lot of Waterford scores. While Clare can argue that referee Johnnie Ryan awarded a few ‘soft’ frees to the visitors, the reality is that the home team failed to maintain first half form …

History was made in Clonmel on Wednesday when a track-bred dog won the Boylesports.com derby for the first time. The history maker was Central City (Ballymac Maeve-Baby Hazel) owned and trained by Brendan Duffy, Derry.In a one-sided final, he led Kyle Ranger (Matt Hyland-Ballyorgan) owned in Patrickswell by Marie Field. In his semi-final, Kyle Ranger tumbled and appeared to pick up a bad injury after his three lengths win over Needham Skill. However, contrary to expectations, there was a final but there was only one dog in it once the pair left slips. An August pup, Central City had a short but amazing coursing season, winning a cup in his first outing before qualifying for Clonmel from the Kilcreevin-Ballymote meeting.For the first time in recent years, Clare owners drew a complete blank at the national meeting. There was no Clare dogs left in the derby after the first round on Monday but Tromora Darkie, Windfarm Swift and Ocean Tolula made …