Road bowling: Gene McVeigh makes history with win over Stokes

The Tyrone man claimed the intermediate title.

Gene McVeigh claimed the win for the Red Hand. File pic: INPHO/Tom Honan

Gene McVeigh created road bowling history at Keady Tassagh on Sunday by becoming the first Tyrone player to win the All-Ireland men’s intermediate final.

He beat Munster champion, Páidín Stokes, by a bowl, having led all the way. But this was definitely a score of two halves.

The Tyrone man looked invincible for the first half. Stokes’ persistence finally reaped dividends from the top of the carnival straight. McVeigh’s unassailable lead began to look more vulnerable under Stokes’ sustained attack. Stokes raised the ante with a smashing bowl that cannoned perfectly off the kerb at the bridge.

McVeigh was now only throwing odds over 47m and the line looked very distant up the hill. He delivered his bowl impossibly close to the left. It looked doomed. Somehow it got a brush and went well up the hill towards the line.

Stokes would now need something out of the ordinary. That never materialised as he too was too tight left and his bowl failed to get back on track.

After a tense closing, McVeigh had survived. The intermediate All-Ireland title would be heading west of the Blackwater river into the Red Hand county for the first time. In 2026 Tyrone will have a man challenging for the Ulster senior title, and bizarrely he has adopted not the traditional Ulster style, but the Munster technique.

In the early exchanges McVeigh looked set to steamroll Stokes. He got the longest first shot on the road in recent history. For context, this is the road that hosts Ból-Fada, so every top senior bowler in Ireland has broken-off that start line. That gave him a lead he never relinquished.

He stormed out Twynam’s corner in four, but Stokes was there in five, keeping the lead under a bowl. He went up Gillogly’s height with a sensational fifth and Stokes just missed that to concede the bowl of odds. Stokes then played two huge bowls to the creamery lane to bring the lead just under a bowl.

Stokes was left with his next one and was now fending off a second bowl of odds. After ten and 12 to the top of the carnival straight, the lead was still almost two and Stokes’ challenge looked lost.

McVeigh only reached the carnival gates next. Stokes replied with a searing bowl tight left, but it got a touch off a metal cover, which deflected it left and it only beat McVeigh tip. McVeigh then missed the creamery stand. Stokes was a fraction too tight left. His bowl came off the edge, but it didn’t have the speed to make McKee’s wall.

After the shots past McKee’s the bowl was knocked and the score was back in play. McVeigh then went over the bridge, but his bowl didn’t have the venom of his earlier ones.

Stokes sent a rocket into the bridge and it came off the kerb. It ran well up the rise and the finish line looked beatable. He was now in a serious position. But McVeigh had the bit of luck with his bowl and Stokes was too tight with his reply.