Sports

IT was a great weekend for Avenue United’s schoolboy sides as five of them won cup finals. In only one grade, U-13, Avenue were not represented in the final and this title was won by Moneypoint who beat Ennis Town 2-1.

Hermitage A 2Tulla Utd A 3All five goals came in the first half of this fixture at the Fairgreen on Sunday.

SADLESOURCE CHAMPION jockey Derek O’Connor signalled his intentions when landing the first race of the 2010/11 point-to-point season aboard Bravo Riquet at last Saturday’s opening day fixture at Toombridge, County Antrim.

The first Cliffs of Moher half marathon attracted over 700 competitors last Saturday morning. In ideal weather conditions, athletes started out in Doolin and travelled via Garrahy’s Cross up the Cliffs path and down onto Liscannor before finishing in Lahinch in aid of Clare Crusaders, St Vincent De Paul and Special Olympics Ireland.

The horses pass Newtown Castle and The Burren College of Art  at the Ballyvaughan Horse and Pony Races. Photograph by John Kelly

Only five teams remain in the race for the Canon Hamilton Trophy, the prize for the winners of the Clare Senior Hurling Championship, following the weekend’s action.All four quarter-finals produced close contests on Saturday last with the meeting of Sixmilebridge and O’Callaghan’s Mills ending level, a result the ’Bridge were fortunate to earn as they were outplayed for much of the tie by their neighbours in the opening game at Cusack Park.For a long time it looked like the second fixture at that venue would also end level but champions Cratloe fought to the end and earned a one point victory over Newmarket who are now 30 years without a win in a competition they dominated throughout the 60s and 70s.In the opening game of the day, Clonlara proved too strong for Clooney-Quin at Shannon and their victory has set up a repeat of last year’s final as they take on Cratloe in the semi-final.The last of the quarter-finals on …

THREE members of the WSKF Ennis Shotokan Academy have been included in the Irish team for the inaugural World World Shotokan Cup. After a long summer of training, Conall Tunney (19), Patrick Tierney (19) and Cormac Hennessy (18) will, on October 11, be flying out to Cyprus, where the World Cup will be held. The Ennis Academy’s kumite, or fighting, coach John Tunney is delighted with the news. “This is the culmination of almost nine months of preparation,” he said. “The boys have worked very hard, particularly during the summer, training four, five and sometimes six times a week.” Recently, the Irish panel have been putting the finishing touches to their preparations for Cyprus, training with some of the best coaches in Europe. Three weeks ago, they trained with the World Lightweight champion, Paul Newby. Last weekend, they worked with the most successful karate fighter of all time, nine-times World and European all-styles karate champion, Wayne Otto. In Cyprus, many …

Doonbeg 1-6 Kilmurry-Ibrickane 0-8   The Magpies are back. The roar from their supporters in the huge Cooraclare crowd, underlined the depth of what it meant to Doonbeg. The wild reaction on the sideline to Enda Doyle’s winning point further indicated how desperate they were to win this one.Come the county final, Doonbeg will be represented for the first time since 2001. Last Saturday evening the 2010 Doonbeg senior football team showed that they had the mettle needed to overcome the Munster and two-in-row Clare champions. Doonbeg’s resolve had been under scrutiny following successive one point county semi-final defeats. What makes this result even better from their viewpoint is that it looked as if they had folded the tent yet again. 0-5 to 0-2 up a minute into the second half, Doonbeg didn’t score again for 17 minutes, while Kilmurry reeled off six unanswered points. Doonbeg were wilting and it seemed that another semi-final defeat was inevitable as Kilmurry led …