Laois Handball News

2015 Leinster Juvenile Wall Ball Championships

Laois had the honour of hosting this year’s Leinster Juvenile Wall Ball Championships and the county captured an impressive haul of four winners and seven runner-up medals. This was a fantastic achievement by Laois and demonstrates once again the ever growing strength of the game within the county.

In the Boys singles, Laois captured their first title when Conor Delaney played fantastic handball to defeat Joe Cowhig of Kilkenny in the BU-13s. Evan Hawkes showed huge potential into qualifying for the BU14s final where he was unfortunately defeated by Jack Holden of Kilkenny and Luke Dunphy met a similar fate in the BU12s when narrowly losing out to Jay McGuire also of Kilkenny.

In the Boys doubles, Laois won the BU-12d title when Dylan Foyle and Dan Kirby defeated Kilkenny’s Padraig Lennon and Sean O’Keeffe. The BU-13d title soon followed when Tiernach Doheny and Ben Dunphy proved too strong for Thomas Nolan and Ciaran Heussaf of Dublin. To cap off a fine day in the Boys competition Eoghan Doheny and Padraic Dunne were victorious in the BU16d with a win over Conor Hoban and Conor Condon of Kilkenny.

In the Girls competition, Laois reached two singles finals. Unfortunately there was no joy in each as Lauren McGuigan lost out in the GU-13s to Abby Tarrant of Kildare and Molly O’Connor was defeated in the GU-14s by Leah Doyle also of Kildare.

The Girls doubles competition brought no further success to Laois with Emma Delaney and Lucy O’Connor losing in the GU-11d to a strong Kilkenny partnership of Amy Brennan and Lauren Power, Maeve McNeill and Maebh Bergin were defeated in the GU-16d by Kilkenny’s Roisin O’Keeffe and Edel Mulholland and lastly Emily McGuigan and Eimear Dunphy went down in the GU-17d to the Kilkenny pairing of Aoife Walsh and Catriona Lawlor.

Mount Talbot Wall-Ball Tournament

The annual Mount Talbot Wall-Ball Tournament was played last weekend with Andrew Dowling representing Laois handball in the Men’s C competition. This tournament is one of the biggest national tournaments on the handballing calendar with players from all corners of Ireland descending on Mount Talbot in search of success.

Andrew has been in impressive form with a number of excellent victories in the Laois Wall-Ball League and he carried this form into the weekend’s action qualifying for the semi-final where he faced Liam Reilly of Cavan. Andrew dominated the semi-final to defeat the Cavan man 21-12 and in the process set up a highly anticipated final against Mayo’s Dara Ruane. In the final, Andrew was to prove the more formidable player producing a performance of high quality and skill. Dara Ruane battled bravely but the Laois man was not to be denied a well earned victory and the title on a score of 21-12. This adds another title to the ever growing list of Wall-Ball titles won by Laois handballers in 2015.