Due to exams and injuries St Comans had a diminished entry to the Mount Talbot One Wall tournament last weekend, but still ended up with three Plate victories and some fine displays.
The youngest Roscommon player to compete, Eoghan Carthy, won out the Plate competition in the Boys U10 grade. The Plate is a separate competition for first round losers of the main event, where Rory lost narrowly to Inverinn’s strong Feidlim O Diolluin. In his Plate final Eoghan beat his clubmate Irslam Yakhyaev who was strongly fancied beforehand to win out the Cup. Eoghan showed tremendous determination and great consistency to beat Irslam’s more spectacular but far less reliable game.
Carragh Kennedy is showing continuous improvement this year and played very well to win the Girls U12 Plate. Carragh lost her first match to Inverinn’s Eadaoin Nic Dhonncha, but was dominant in the Plate beating Emma Kinnane from Abbeyknockmoy in the final.
Fionn Cusack maintained his good Onewall form when he took the honours in the Boys U16 Plate. After losing an excellent first round match to eventual Cup winner Eoin Brennan from Kilkenny, Fionn played very impressively in the Plate, culminating with his 16-9 final win over Tyrone’s fancied Dara Curran.
Fionn’s older brother Oisin will probably wonder how he let his game-long lead slip up in the last minute in his second round U18 match. Having defeated Tyrone’s Onewall specialist Turlough Clarke in the first round, Oisin led the whole way against another Onewall specialist in Leitrim’s Jarlath Scollan, but was just pegged back in the last few rallies, to lose 19-18.
Rory Carthy, Eoghan’s older brother, nearly caused one of the shocks of the whole weekend when he came heartbreakingly close to beating reigning World Doubles champion Fiachra O’Duill in the Boys U12 Cup second round. Rory’s consistency and killing ability caused the Armagh youngster all sorts of problems and in truth he did very well to pull back from a 6 point deficit with less than two minutes left to draw 17-17. In the three minutes extra time O’Duill’s experience told as he won well, but Rory is developing into a very strong player for his age.
Eanna Moran is normally a very strong Onewall player but looked rusty in his two appearances in the U14 event. He lost convincingly to Clare’s Sean Coughlan in the Cup and to Tipperary’s Cormac Doheny in the Plate, only getting into it at the end of his second match.
Fiona Tully was well beaten by Mayo’s Pauline Gallagher in her opening Ladies Open match. Although Fiona played quite well, Pauline is a very strong Onewall player and her accurate serving and all-round game was too much for Fiona. In her Plate match Fiona was comfortably dispatched by Laois’s Niamh Dunne.