Road Bowling: Murphy dazzles en route to Munster senior title

DAZZLING DISPLAY: David Murphy, winner of the Munster Men's Senior road bowling final against Martin Coppinger at Ballincurrig, Co. Cork. 

David Murphy is Munster senior road bowling champion after a dazzling exhibition of bowling against Martin Coppinger at a tightly packed Ballincurrig road on Sunday.

This, his fifth Munster senior title, his first since 2018, may rank as his sweetest. Either Murphy or Coppinger contested ten of the 11 Munster finals between 2008 and 2019, yet they never faced each other. The novelty of these two worlds finally colliding fuelled interest and pulled bowling fans from the four provinces to fill a massive stake of €84,800.

Coppinger opened in a welter of assertive bowling. He scorched his opening bowl to just shy of light. Murphy was slightly left with his and missed it by 25m. Murphy’s second was good, but Coppinger flashed back with another massive bowl to the black sign to extend his lead to 100m. He was doing everything right and Murphy had not nearly reached the pitch he would find later.

Murphy’s third was a notch up from his first two. Still Coppinger was expected to beat it well, but it instead heralded the slow deflation of his momentum. He was too tight right and his bowl got sucked into the right. He only beat Murphy’s tip by a metre. 

Murphy put him back on his heels with a daring bowl tight on the left that reached the creamery and gave him his first lead. The sands were already shifting.

Murphy extended his lead with a big fifth bowl to the pony’s gate. He went up the gears from there. He blasted a perfect bowl to light at Heaphy’s to push his lead to almost a bowl after Coppinger got a poor one from the no-play line. He held that advantage with another good bowl to light at O’Riordan’s. 

He raised the bowl with his shot up the long straight. He narrowly missed the big corner in ten, giving Coppinger a sniff.

That never materialised as Coppinger pushed his bowl up the short straight across to the left and missed light. Murphy drove his bowl all the way to light and now he was almost two in front. Murphy’s perfectly played 13th bowl to Din Tough’s brought the curtain down. To have any chance Coppinger needed to get well past the bend, but he was too tight on the left. He missed Murphy’s tip to fall two bowls behind with just three shots to the line.

He graciously conceded and the dam burst among Murphy’s fans. They whipped him up in a flood of euphoria. He will need to get his feet back on the ground for a meeting with Ulster and All-Ireland champion, Thomas Mackle, over the same road in next month’s All-Ireland final.