Mullins bidding to end 30-year Munster hunger

DAVID MURPHY and Christy Mullins contest a novel Munster senior bowling final at Grange, Clonakilty on Sunday (3pm).

Murphy was All-Ireland champion in 2008 and is considered the leader of his generation. Mullins is of a different generation, having contested his only previous Munster senior final 30 years ago at The Miles in which he lost to Seamus Sexton. In all those 30 years though Mullins started the championship as a potential winner and has more than his share of big wins.

However, the final always proved to be out of reach. He is one of Ireland’s most respected international bowlers and at the 2008 European championships played the role of both a coach and player and finished a solid fifth to Philip O’Donovan in Holland.

In this year’s championship he showed stronger resolve and when it came to the knockout stages he closed out his quarter-final and semi-final scores. He defied a big second last shot from Pat Butler at Lyre in the quarter-final, but that presented him with a bigger challenge in Aidan Murphy at Rosscarbery in the semi-final.

A repeat of that sort of bowling would give David Murphy plenty to think about on Sunday.

Murphy is at the other end of his career, but is already a prodigious talent. In the last three years he has always ended the year with at least one major title. In 2008 he was European and All-Ireland champion and he has been in the last four King of the Roads finals — winning all of them except the 2008 final to his brother Aidan.

His dismissal of Edmund Sexton in the Munster semi-final at Macroom sums up his current standing: a few flashes of brilliance and he was out of sight. Ability got him to here, but he now also carries an aura. Martin Coppinger seemed to have the upper hand in their Munster quarter-final meeting at the Marsh Road, yet Murphy had a comfortable win at the end.

Mullins must make every single shot count. He will need to push clear if the opportunity presents itself in the middle part of the Grange course, where craft and a cool head can be useful. His big danger will be on the wide open spaces leading to Barry’s.

Murphy has the gears to burn up that straight and the lofts to get him out of tricky corners. It is probably the case that no bowler since Mick Barry has the same range of skills.

But as Christy Mullins and all the world of bowling knows, Mick Barry could be beaten too.