This article is from page 98 of the 2008-06-24 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 98 JPG
Weve ote al Féile na nGael held at venues in Laois, Offally and Tipperary over the weekend.
Clare was represented at Féile by camogie and hurling teams from the Bridge. Despite some encouraging performances, neither side qualified from the group stages.
The hurlers were pitted in a tough group alongside noted Cork side Na Piarsaigh, Dungarvan from Water- ford and another side from the rebel county Kiltha Og.
The Bridge lost their opening en- counter against Na Piarsaigh and lost narrowly by two points to Dun- garvan. The Bridge bounced back and bowed out with a three point win over Kiltha Og.
The Bridge’s group opponents Na Piarsaigh made it to the Féile final where they were beaten by Kilkenny club James Stephens
Qualification from the group stages also eluded the camogie players of Sixmilebridge over the weekend.
The Bridge, who were representing Clare for the third time at the annual
event, gave themselves a great chance of making it into the knockout stages for the first time by beating Tipper- ary champions Thurles in their sec- ond group encounter.
Sixmulebridge lost their opening game on Friday night to hosts ‘Toom- evara. But results elsewhere went kindly for Sixmilebridge. Toome- vara drew with Douglas and Thurles. These coupled with Sixmilebridge’s win over Thurles left the Clare side needing a win against Douglas to quality.
The Bridge played with tremen- dous spirit for long periods, but were eventually overcome by an older and stronger Douglas side, who ran out comfortable winners.
That ended the Bridge’s interest in the competition for another year at least.
The highpoint of an eventful cam- paign for the Bridge was undoubt- edly Saturday’s win over Thurles.
The Bridge edged a tight game 3- 1 2-1 with goals from Ali Quinlan, Sinead Tuohy and Niamh Murray.
Manager Niamh McInerney said the club can be proud of the team’s performances. “They were excel- lent, particularly against Thurles,
but even against Douglas as well. We kept them out for a long time” said McInerney.
Dublin side Lucan Sarsfields were crowned Féile champions when they defeated Mullagh in the division one final in O’Moore Park on Sunday.
Meanwhile, there was some suc- cess for Clare camogie when Vera Loughnane was crowned winner of the Feile Skills competition in Laois on Saturday. The Feakle girl beat of opposition from Antrim (2nd) and Limerick (3rd) to claim her title. This was Vera’s second year to go to the National finals having won the coun- ty competition last year also. Vera had accounted very well for herself at last year’s competition coming a creditable third. Vera worked on her hurling skills with her father in Feakle and was also delighted to have had some coaching and pointers from Colin Lynch and Deirdre Mur- phy. Vera had to contend with the wet and blustery conditions on the morn- ing of the competition. However the weather failed to deter the young Feakle girl. The local community in Feakle are delighted with Vera’s achievement and hope it will help in fostering the importance of the skills
of the game on the rest of players in the club and county.