Road bowling: Munster eye response as Ulster set championship standard
Shane Crowley is one of Munster road bowling's most exciting emerging talents. Pic:Picture Denis Boyle
March has suddenly switched on spring and for bowlers that heralds in serious concentration on the championships.
Usually in Munster not a lot of attention is paid to happenings in Ulster this time of year. These are not usual times though.
In 2025 Ulster won the top five national individual titles. Their men won the senior, Ethan Raferty; the intermediate, Gene McVeigh and junior A, Conor McGuigan. Kelly Mallon won her 12th senior All-Ireland and Gemma McCann won the intermediate.
Two additional positive stats in the Ulster ledger were that the senior men completed four-in-a-row and Mallon moved so far ahead on the national roll of honour that she is never likely to be equalled.
There were plenty of positives for Munster. It won nine of the remaining 12 individual national titles and seven of those winners are under-25: Laura Sexton, Emma Hurley, Shane Crowley, Eoghan Kelly, Brian O'Driscoll, Cathal Creedon and Tommy Coppinger.
Despite all those green shoots Munster bowlers will be expecting something more immediate at the top levels in 2026. Ból-Fada at Keady-Tassagh on the Easter weekend will put such aspirations into perspective.
Arthur McDonagh will wear the Munster shirt in the Joe McVeigh Cup. If he can close a successful weekend for Munster by dethroning Colm Rafferty it would send a very encouraging note southwards. Just as critical will be how his brother, Timmy, deals with Gene McVeigh.
But for those interested in a turn of the tide and not just a big splash, focus will be on the fate of Brian O’Driscoll and Shane Crowley.
These are two of Munster’s hottest emerging talents, who face two equally vaunted Ulster tyros in Aaron Hughes and Darragh Gribben. All four are live contenders for their provincial junior A titles, so two of them could face-off in Ballinagree in July.
Crowley’s challenge may be greater than O’Driscoll’s. He plays Hughes. Munster bowlers have so often been lulled into underestimating Hughes, only to find themselves on the wrong side of a firm defeat.
O’Driscoll is paired against Gribben. He can expect much harder questions from Gribben than from Barry O’Reilly in last year’s junior B final. On that occasion O’Driscoll gave an impeccable display of brilliance, yet O’Reilly was on his case to the line.
Were Munster to win those four contests, it would put a spring in the step of every senior, intermediate and junior A bowler in the south.
Sisters Hannah and Ellen Sexton have a similar mission when they play Dervla Toal-Mallon and Gemma McCann. For Hannah it is a chance to exorcise last year’s All-Ireland defeat to Kelly Mallon and to measure herself against 2024 senior champion, Toal-Mallon.
Ellen Sexton is one of the favourites for the Munster intermediate crown. If she can hold her own here it would be a very positive indicator that she could win the All-Ireland over the same course in August.
The Ulster bid for five-in-a-row All-Ireland senior men’s titles is distilled down to just four players. Last year’s All-Ireland intermediate winner Gene McVeigh is hoping to become the first Tyrone Ulster senior champion.
He faces three members of the Toal clan from Armagh, Ethan Rafferty who won the 2025 All-Ireland, his brother Colm who won in 2024 and their first-cousin Thomas Mackle who won the 2022 and 2023 All-Irelands. They all play each other in a round-robin.
Seán Murphy beat Noel O’Donovan by two bowls in Zone B of the Munster junior A championship at Ballinacurra. There was little indication of the final margin in the closely contested opening exchanges. The lead was shared in the first five to Foley’s, where O’Donovan had 40m odds.
Murphy raised 50m odds with a big sixth bowl and led to the finish. He had close to a bowl of odds after seven towards the gas-line. He held that lead to light facing the bridge. His next bowl cannoned perfectly off the bridge.
O’Donovan’s reply hit the bridge and he missed Murphy’s tip again with his next one to fall two bowls behind. That ended it as a contest.
Brothers Tadhg, Seán and Kieran Hickey led Mid-Cork to victory in the Munster boys team final at Castletownkenneigh. They accumulated a score of 1,507m to just hold off An Ghaeltacht (Andrew O’Callaghan, Eoghan Kelly and Bobby O’Brien) by four metres with West Cork (Eoghan Hickey, Adam Harrington and Donncha McCarthy) third.
Carbery (Meave Cuinnea, Lauren McCarthy and Aoife McCarthy) won the Munster girls' final with a sensational score of 1,518m. An Ghaeltacht (Naomi Scannell, Robyn O’Brien and Lily McDonagh) were second in that too with West Cork (Alison McCarthy, Grace O’Sullivan and Iona McCarthy) also third.
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