Welsh schoolboy came, saw and conkered at championship
Nutcrackers got a shock when a schoolboy visitor from Wales, 12-year-old Conor Miller, came to Freshford, Co Kilkenny and soundly walloped the Irish adults at the weekend decider to become our national senior conker champion.
His prize included a €1,000 travel voucher to New York.
And he gets to represent Ireland in the 2005 world championships - as his grandparents are from Johnstown, Co Kilkenny.
The kid from Cardiff had never previously played the game beloved by generations of English schoolboys.
Even more galling, Conor admitted he would not have entered had it not been for his Irish granny’s insistence.
What of the Irish contenders? “The chestnut wasn’t working for me,” bemoaned runner-up Tom Weston, from Dublin.
Tom has a fair point as the Irish championships are run under international rules which means luck plays a big part. Here, each competitor randomly selects a conker from a bag, rather than play with his own equipment.
Eamonn Dooley from Freshford was an early victim on his home pitch, much to the disappointment of his legions of fans.
He holds the world record for conkers by demolishing 306 in an hour, but has not yet won the Irish title.
Kilkenny scooped a batch of under-age titles. Shane Donnelly from Freshford (under-10); Simon Randall, Clontubrid (under-13) and another local lad, Owen Brennan (under-16) all showed the adults how it’s done.
