Pat Butler rolls back the years to claim junior crown

Former senior champion Pat Butler rolled back the years at Castletownkenneigh on Monday where he beat Donncha O’Brien with the last shot of a brilliant Munster Junior A championship tie.

He didn’t get a big opener, but O’Brien missed it by 25m after playing his bowl to the left. O’Brien’s second was left too and Butler increased his lead. O’Brien’s third was also poor, which left him almost a bowl down. Butler consolidated his lead with a great fourth to the end of the railing.

O’Brien rallied strongly with three great bowls in succession towards the Round Tower Pub cross to cut Butler’s odds to just 25m. He followed with another big one to the old pub and won his first lead by 10m. Butler regained the lead with a great bowl up the rise towards the novice line.

O’Brien won back the lead with another big shot towards Pyne’s corner, which Butler missed by 20m. Butler responded with a perfectly played bowl to the bend, which O’Brien just missed. It stayed on a knife edge with O’Brien hitting back with a big bowl to sight at the last bend. After another there was just 2m between them. They both then missed the line, with Butler one metre fore.

O’Brien closed with a great bowl that got a huge rub and presented Butler with a massive bowl to beat. Butler delivered a perfectly measured bowl that beat the tip by 10m. Martin Coppinger, with a gold and silver medal, was the best of the Irish at the special Golden Jubilee European championships at Meldorf last weekend.

Aidan Murphy (silver) and Thomas Mackle (bronze) completed a clean sweep of the senior men’s individual medals, which was enough to give Ireland team gold too. Coppinger followed with a Dutch Moors silver and was only 9m shy of gold. Overall the Irish men’s team finished second to the Netherlands in their national discipline.

Kelly Mallon in fourth was best of the Irish women in road bowling, as Ireland only finished third in the team order of merit. In the Dutch Moors, Mallon was fourth again, but the Irish women finished a disappointing fourth overall in the team placings.

In the Junior Section (U18) Hannah Sexton won an individual bronze medal on the road, with Shannon McGuire fourth and the Irish team winning silver overall. Sexton, fifth, was also best of the Irish in the Dutch Moors, but the team could only secure a bronze medal.

Wayne Parkes had one of the standout achievements of the games, winning the U18 individual bronze medal in German lofting. He was less than 3m away from a silver, in what is considered Ireland’s weakest discipline. His performance helped Ireland also win the team silver medal.

The flip side is that the Irish U18 boys didn’t bring home any individual medals in either the road or Dutch moors. Silke Tulk was again the star of the show, winning both the road and Dutch moors gold medals for the Netherlands.

Overall not too many conclusions can be drawn from event in terms of the overall state of the sport in Ireland vis-à-vis other European nations. There are more caveats than hard facts to draw upon. It is pretty clear that both the Dutch and the host German VSHB associations put more into this than any of the other teams.

The performances of Martin Coppinger, Aidan Murphy, and Thomas Mackle tally with both their standing in Europe and also that they are in championship mode at home. Had Ireland been carrying a full-scale team like for the European championships, we might have seen better results on the road and moors.

Having such a small team means that some of the current form players were at home. Also for a full scale international there would have been significantly more squad training and preparations. Veronica O’Mahony, Mairéad O’Driscoll, and defending champion Carmel Ryan-Carey advanced to join Meghan Collins in the Munster senior women’s semi-finals.

O’Mahony beat Louise Collins in the last shot at Baile Bhuirne. O’Driscoll also had a last-shot win over Clare O’Sullivan at Shannonvale. Ryan-Carey had a comprehensive win over Geraldine Daly-Curtin at Crookstown.

Gary Daly beat Paul O’Reilly by two bowls in the feature score in the benefit series at the Clubhouse. He was a bowl up after making sight at the chips in three. He quickly extended his lead to almost two bowls at O’Riordan’s and there was no way back.