Well what can be said about today. Well the best way to describe it would be “So near yet so far”

As stated last night our best chances came in the Rinks and Pairs events.

Rinks

Kieran Trainor playing along with Danny McDonald lost to Paddy Hanlon who was with Colum McHugh by the narrowest of margins. Gerry McCabes rink of Stephen McMahon John Murnaghan and Micheal Savage cruised past Jude Morris. In the quarter final stage Gerry easily knocked out Jal Richardson by 5 and Paddy comfortably beat Gary Burke 9/3. This set a collision course with club mates. Paddy v Gerry. Throughout the game it looked liked Colum and Paddy were in control but an incredible last few ends saw the Cooley quartet scrape through with the very last bowl. In the final they would play John quinn

Pairs

The first round saw the casualty of Sean Traynor and Mary Gartlan 10-4.

The 3rd round saw the departure of Nial and Jason hand to Shane Magennis. This round also witnessed the exit of our ladies pairs Champions Caroline McSherry and Vera Mohan losing 9-3 to J Routledge. Our National Pairs holders Michael Hand couldn’t get to grips with Mark Wilson, going down 12-1. The 2 Sean Conroy’s were pipped to the post losing 9-8 to Brian Rankin. It must be said though wee sean. Green suits you.

This left only Shane Hand and Paul Duff in the Pairs. Paul began the day with an 11-5 victory over Paddy McElvaney. He then comfortably beat Ann McKiver 8-5. A 7-3 victory followed over Seamus McGlinchy. The quarter final saw them gain some revenge for the hand brothers by comfortably beating Shane Magennis. The semi final however, against Brian Rankin, was anything but comfortable. He was 9-6 down and shot against him playing the last bowl the odds looked against the oriel pair. But Paul replied with a “screw the odds “ and played the bowl of the day to turn the shot bowl off and pick up the jack to gain a 4 and reach the final. Here they would face Tommy litcho and Robbie Foster

Trips

Our sole entry,John McMahon playing with Thomas Gartlan and Imelda Hanratty, began the day with a loud bang.  In the first round they came up against one of the favorites and National holders, Raymond Stubbs. John was rewinding the years and came out victorious 9-6. In the quarter final it took some exceptional bowls of Corrigan Sproule and Campbell to beat john 6-4.

Singles

Diarmuid began his day slowly going into a 7-2 deficit against Brendan Murphy. But he was able to turn this around and playing the last end was 9-9. He eventually won. In the quarter final he was outclassed by National singles winner Joe Beattie, losing with an end to spare.

Finals

The pairs saw Paul race into an early lead and with 2 ends to go had half a hand on the title leading by 3. Unfortunately his hand was quickly taken off of it, when he dropped a 3 in the second last end. Squaring the match 9-9. In the last end, the head didn’t look promising so he fired with his last bowl and connected but unfortunately went to Fosters to lose 10-9

The rinks started off badly and went from bad to worse for Gerry. At 3-1 he had a chance for 5 and somehow the jack jumped up in the air and dropped one. At 7-1 down he had a great chance of 5 but went through a gap and in the end lost with an end to spare

It was a good days bowling but unfortunately no titles came home to Oriel this season. We’d also like to congratulate young Jamie west from Monaghan Zone for reaching the final of the singles. He was a whisper away from becoming the youngest ever winner in singles