Coughlan retains Munster title

THE Munster Open U-15 Handball Tournament was held in recent days in Liscarroll, Cork with in excess of 50 players taking part. This is the biggest juvenile handball tournament in Ireland, with the exception of the nationals.

The initial rounds took place over two days, with the quarter-finals through to the final taking place on New Year’s Eve.

The quarter-finalists were Fergal Coughlan (Clooney), Jack Hayes (Clarecastle), Mickey Maher (Tipperary), Darragh Lyons (Waterford), Aidan O’Brien (Cork), Shane Flynn (Cork), Aidan Fitzgerald (Waterford) and Niall Joyce (Mayo).

Coughlan was on fire from the start of the competition with impressive displays of power serving and passing play with both left and right hands. After a great quarter-final match win over Waterford’s Aidan Fitzgerald, he came up against another Waterford player, Darragh Lyons, who himself had toppled one of the favourites, Mickey Maher of Tipperary.

Coughlan proved too powerful and powered his way through to set up a final clash with Niall Joyce of Mayo. The Mayo lad got off to the better start, utilising his power serving to great advantage to take the first 15-10. Coughlan soon regained the momentum and upped the gear a notch with some impressive serving and offensive play to clinch the second on a 15-3 scoreline.

Coughlan was now in the driving seat and could sense the finishing line was within his grasp. With the serve going with Coughlan in the tie break, he never looked back and raced to an impressive 7-0 tie-break win to take the title back to Clare.

The win was made all the more sweet as he became only the second player to win the tournament two years in-a-row, the last being Cathal Hannon, also of Clare, in 2003 and 2004.

This certainly capped off a fine year for young Coughlan, who also captured one silver and two gold medals at the World Championships in October.