MEMBERS of the Ennis Tennis and Badminton Club enjoyed a lot of success at the Munster Close and Leinster Spring Open Badminton Championships recently.Twenty-five members of the Ennis club took part in the Munster Close competition at the University of Limerick, where they won a total of 26 medals.Ciara Dwyer won both the Munster U-15 close and the Leinster U-14 open titles. She teamed up with Megan Bredin to win the girls doubles at both championships.Ciara defeated the first, second and third Leinster seeds to win the U-14 Leinster crown. In the final, she came up against Leinster’s number one, Sara Boyle. Ciara won the first set 21-12 but Sara levelled when she won the second 21-17. In a thrilling third set, Ciara emerged as the 24-22 winner to take the title. In the doubles final at Terenure, Ciara and Megan beat the Dublin pairing of Kate Frost and Nora O’Gorman 30-27.In the Division 1, U-11 grade, Karen McNamara won …

THERE were no major surprises as round three of the Clare Junior Cup title race dominated proceedings in the local soccer scene last weekend. Burren’s win over Bunratty will be seen, by some, as a shock but Burren have been putting together some impressive results of late and they deserved their latest win.Established sides such as Avenue United and Lifford were made fight all the way for victory. The remaining two quarter-final places will be filled this weekend when the meeting of Manus Celtic A and B at the County Grounds is sure to arouse a lot of attention. Rock Rovers 1Sporting Ennistymon 1(Rock Rovers won 3-1 on penalties) Rock Rovers advanced to the last eight in the cup title race when they overcame Sporting Ennistymon in a penalty shoot-out at Lees Road on Sunday.Ennis side Rock got off to a great start with a Shane Daniels goal in the second minute but the sides were back on terms before …

THE Clare Community Games talent competition was held in Sixmilebridge GAA hall on Saturday and Sunday, co-ordinated by county secretary, Mary Phelan and treasurer Rose Meakins.The judges for the weekend were Anne Hayes, Noreen Murrihy, Niamh Phelan, Hazel Tuohy, Shauna Kerin, Stephanie Griffin, Bridget Kelly and Agnes O’Dowd.The competition attracted a big entry and the standard in all sections was high. The winners in each category now go forward to repreaent Clare in the national finals in Athlone at the end of May.The results are as follows:Solo Music: 1. Maria Gleeson, Doora/Barefield; 2. Gerard Kennedy, Ennis St John’s; 3. Caoimhe Morrissey, Clarecastle/Ballyea; 4. Niamh Whelan, Ruan.Group Music: 1. Aislinn Hehir, Ronan Duggan, Róisín Considine, Diarmuid Donnellan, Cooraclare/Cree; 2. Tadhg Shanahan, Donal O’Criodain, Eimhin Dunne, Laura Haugh, Áine Nash, Paul Hogan, Quin/Clooney; 3. Niamh Whelan, Louise McDonnell, Lorna Crowe, Ruan; 4. Aoife Hurley, Aoife Roche, Aoife  Corbett, Rachel O’Callaghan, Niamh  O’Dea, Katie Freeman, Sixmilebridge/Kilmurry.Group Drama/Sketch: 1. Emma Kennedy, Saoirse Young, Sixmilebridge/Kilmurry; …

SEAVIEW Park in Quilty is an Ian McInerney free kick away from Kilmurry-Ibrickane GAA field. Uniquely, McInerney, who plays at centre-forward, is one of six players from the estate who will pull on the green and red jersey on March 17 before Kilmurry play the biggest game in their history.Noel Downes will wear number 15, while Paul O’Connor and Stephen Moloney will start at midfield and in the half-forward line respectively. They’ll be joined on the panel by Brendan Moloney (Stephen’s brother) and Thomas O’Connor (Paul’s brother). The Downes, O’Connor and Moloney family houses are situated next to each other, while the McInerneys live at the front of the park. The craic is good amongst the Seaview Park six. “I’m down in the posh part. This is the rough spot around here. I’m not usually up this far,” Ian McInerney laughs as he verbally jostles with his team-mates. “I’ve to come up and mind Downes, the small fella,” he adds, …

WHEN the Kilmurry-Ibrickane players and management hear the knock on their dressing room door at around 3.20pm next Wednesday, the most epic hour in the club’s history will be ticking towards starting point. The talking, cajoling, planning and convincing will be almost at an end. It will be time to play. It will be time to add the Andy Merrigan Cup to Jack Daly and the Munster club titles, both of whom are already housed in Quilty.The Kilmurry supporters can well afford to get caught up in the hype and excitement of the club’s history-making exploits. Why wouldn’t they as their community nears a day of days? An afternoon that will be recalled in vivid and perhaps even exaggerated detail for generations. Players or management cannot think along the same lines though. At the same time, it will almost impossible to escape the pre-match commotion. Up to a point, the electricity in the Kilmurry air can be utilised to inspire …

THE longer Kilmurry-Ibrickane’s season extends, the easier it has been for Micheál McDermott to leave the ladder in his garage in Ballyduff, Barefield. Now that he is managing the county team, along with the Clare and Munster club champions, the Cavan man is tied up on the football front six days a week. Monday is his night off but it’s not an evening when he feels like reaching for the ladder. “Just unwind and get your plans in order for the following week. Have an early night and just recharge the batteries. I find that Monday is so relaxing,” McDermott, who is in his second year in charge of Kilmurry, explained. His wife Marie, who is from Armagh, is as passionate about horses as her husband is about football. Although she might be temporarily stunned, Marie can’t wait for the day when Micheál is seen on top of the ladder, armed with a paint brush. “There’s a lot of little …

  IT’S every player’s dream to play in an All-Ireland final and Kilmurry-Ibrickane captain Enda Coughlan is no different. From his juvenile days, he has always wanted to play in an All-Ireland final and this goal will be fulfilled next week when he leads the Clare champions against St Gall’s.“Patrick Murrihy started us out here around 1990 and while All-Irelands weren’t on our mind then, it’s a dream come through. It’s every young fella’s dream to play there for his club and county and thankfully that dream has come through for us now, the Clare champion’s skipper said this week.Like most Kilmurry-Ibrickane  members, he believes that the national Féile title win a decade ago has played a big part in the senior team’s march to this year’s final. He played at U-14 level the previous year when Clare hosted the Féile and they were beaten by the Division 1 winners, Salthill.“Kilmurry had a good quality team in when they went …

  ANY coach who wants an example of textbook football should watch a video of the 2006 Clare U-21 final when Kilmurry-Ibrickane clinched their fourth title in a row with a scintillating performance in the opening 20 minutes.The young men in red and green blitzed Doonbeg in Cooraclare, notching 1-8 without reply, a display that would not have been out of place from any county senior champions.Although a spirited Doonbeg outfit showed great character to reduce the deficit to just four points in the 40th minute when other teams would have totally collapsed, Dermot Coughlan’s young charges were still able to re-ignite their tremendous teamwork and clinical finishing to run out convincing 1-13 to 1-6 winners.Manager, Dermot Coughlan feels this was the best display by Kilmurry from their six U-21 titles at this level against a strong Doonbeg outfit.Coughlan noted the club’s outstanding run at underage level provided a great foundation for senior success and should provide players with enough …

  INHIBITIONS went out the window a long time ago for Michelle Downes. The Doonaha woman has grown accustomed to invading the privacy of a male-dominated dressing room. Now she doesn’t bat an eyelid, it’s a simple case of getting on with the job and her job is that of sports rehabilitator. But during that time, she has been exposed to several pranks. She takes the banter in her stride and isn’t slow to hit back. It helps break the ice and build up a rapport with the players.“When I was studying in Carlow Institute of Technology, part of our education involved placement with boys’ teams. The course was sports-related and being in a team setting was a big part of it. Working in a dressing room full of males was hard at the beginning but I’ve got used to that scene now,” Michelle admits. “I’m with the Kilmurry teams for the past two years but at the start, I …

NEXT week will be the first time in 56 years that a football team from Clare will take to the field for an All-Ireland final at minor, U-21 or senior level.In September 1953, a promising Clare minor team imploded when they faced Mayo in Croke Park, going down by 2-11 to 1-6 and it’s not a fond memory for Michael Garry who was in goal.The week after Kilmurry-Ibrickane stunned Portlaoise, he appealed to the All-Ireland finalists to give it everything, through the letter page of The Clare Champion. “I was part of the Clare minor team beaten by Mayo in the 1953 All-Ireland final and I’m still hurting from that experience. I plead with all the Kilmurry-Ibrickane players to give it their absolute best shot so that they can live happily with the memory for the rest of their lives,” he wrote.Michael now lives in Australia but grew up in Ennis and while he said the ’53 final was disappointing, …

  IN any discussion about Kilmurry-Ibrickane football, the name of Patrick Murrihy will come into the conversation. The majority of the current panel will claim it was Patrick, who first coached them. Currently chairman of the Kilmurry-Ibrickane minor club, he continues to be one of the leading figures in driving the club’s coaching programme.Speaking to Patrick ahead of next week’s All-Ireland final, he maintains that the coaching policy operated by the club and the securing of their own headquarters have played vital roles in the club’s progress to the position where they are now one step away from being crowned All-Ireland senior champions.“Around the end of the ’80s and early ’90s, the club purchased land and with the field being developed, it was attractive for young fellas to be playing. It was the first time that we ever had a home of our own. The coaching was a bit alien to all of us but we said if we were …

FOUR points up 15 minutes into the second half, it seemed that Clare had the measure of the Limerick U-21 footballers in Cooraclare on Wednesday night. The visitors, however, managed to outscore Clare 1-5 to 0-1 in the closing quarter and reserve a place against Tipperary in the Munster semi-final on March 18.Cormac Joyce Power’s goal eight minutes from full-time was the game’s key score and it helped establish a 1-8 to 0-9 lead for the winners, who should have had home advantage, but the game was switched from the Gaelic Grounds due to ice on the Ennis Road pitch.Wolfe Tones’ Gary Leahy kicked four first-half points for Clare, two from frees, to help the home county into a 0-6 to 0-2 interval lead. Podge McMahon kicked the remaining points and it looked as if Clare carried more attacking threat than Limerick.Shane Brennan, who excelled along with Seán Collins, kicked the opening point of the second half to extend Clare’s …

SHORTLY after 1.30pm next Tuesday a deafening roar from the packed stands at Prestbury Park will signal the start of the 2010 Cheltenham Festival.This four-day bonanza of national hunt racing sets pulses racing like no other fixture on the racing calendar and next week’s meeting hosts the prospects of some intriguing clashes. The anticipated duel between stable companions Kauto Star and Denman, first and second favourites on all bookmakers’ boards for the totesport Gold Cup, is set to be one of the races of the season. 2007 Gold Cup winner, Kauto Star, became the first horse ever to regain the crown when defeating reigning champion Denman last year and Clive Smith’s star chaser looks set to go off odds-on March 19 to land his third Gold Cup. Ruby Walsh, who has won the leading rider award at the festival for the last two years, rides the Gold Cup market-leader and the Kildare jockey again goes into the meeting with an …

IT was a case of third time lucky for Robert Frost at the Munster GAA convention last Friday in Listowel. The O’Callaghan’s Mills man recorded a comfortable 34 to 18 win over Tipperary’s John Costigan in a contest for the post of vice-chairman.Frost replaces Kerry’s Seán Walsh, who became the council chairman in succession to Jimmy O’Gorman (Waterford), whose three-year term ended at the convention.Frost served in a variety of positions in his club including those of secretary and treasurer. He played hurling at all grades for the club. He is a former chairman of the Clare hurling board and vice-chairman of the county board and for the past number of years, he has been one of the Clare delegates to the provincial body.He is currently chairman of the provincial body’s coaching and games’ committee. Speaking this week after his election, he said that one of the areas he will be looking at is the urban and rural situation. “Rural …

Phew. If Clare senior football manager Micheál McDermott had been captain of the Titanic 98 years ago, the iceberg would have melted long before it interfered with the liner.  Hopefully, Clare’s luck will hold but they can’t rely on the chance that it will. Unless they improve radically, in virtually every sector of the field and on the sideline, they will receive an unmerciful hammering some day soon. Insipid in the first half and trailing 0-9 to 0-5 after 35 minutes, Clare didn’t improve thereafter. Their luck did though and two fortunate goals derailed Leitrim. The Connacht side’s goalkeeper, Gareth Phelan, was unable to field a couple of high balls, driven in by Barry Toner and Chris Dunning respectively and directly contributed to Leitrim’s defeat. They have now lost three of their first four games and have virtually no chance of achieving promotion. If Clare win in Ruislip next Sunday, they will have full points from four matches, with five …