The National Finals took place on Saturday the 29th of March with Oriel being represented in 3 of the finals, with Diarmuid McMahon and Shane Hand in the open pairs final, Paudie Boye, Shane Hand and Paul Duff in the open Trips final, and Michael Savage, John Murnaghan, Seán Breen and Marty Trainor in the open rinks final. It’s a fantastic achievement from all the players to have Oriel featuring so prominently on the final day! The finals are also available to view on the Oriel Zone YouTube channel so be sure to subscribe to the channel @OrielZoneBowls.
Trips
The day started off with the trips final with Paudie, Shane and Paul playing a 12 end match against Mark Sproule, D Peden and E Marsden from Ballinderry. In the first end Paul had 4 shots against him throwing his last bowl and did well to cut it down to just 1. He then had another great shot in the 2nd end, where he knocked a toucher on top of the jack in the ditch to even up the score at 1-1. In the 3rd end all 3 players in the Oriel trip played well and got 2 shots to go 3-1 up. However in the 4th end Mark Sproule’s trip came back well and took advantage of a loose shot at the end from Paul to gain 4 shots to make the score 5-3.
Paudie, Shane and Paul responded well again though to get 2 back and level it at 5-5 after the 5th end, and then picked up another 1 in each of the 6th, 7th and 8th ends to take a 8-5 lead after 8 ends. They continued their good momentum with 2 more in the 9th to go 10-5 up after 9 ends, But then Mark Sproule had a great shot to knock the jack into the ditch and come away with 2 shots of his own to make it 10-7 after 10 ends, and gained another 2 shots to set up a grandstand finish with the score 10-9 going into the last end.
The Oriel trip had the stronger start to the end and were holding shot after the lead’s bowls. But the Balinderry trip played well with the next few bowls to be holding 2 shots as Paul went up to throw his 1st bowl. Paul however made no mistake and took the shot back by knocking their bowls away, meaning Mark had to take the shot back with his final bowl to stay in the game. With his final bowl Mark was too tight meaning the Oriel trip came away with a 11-9 victory and the National Trips Title!
Huge congratulations to Paudie, Shane and Paul who played fantastic bowls and were deserving winners. A big shoutout to 18 year old Paudie Boyle is in order, as he played brilliant lead bowls in his first ever national final to help the team to the win.
Commiserations to the Ballinderry trip as they hung in the game fantastically when it looked like it was slipping away from them, and fought to the very end.
Paudie, Shane and Paul will now represent Ireland in the triples of the International series next season so best of luck to them in that as well!
Rinks
Next up was the rinks final where the Cooley team of Michael Savage, John Murnaghan, Seán Breen and Marty Trainor represented Oriel against Colum McHugh, D Davidson, K McCullough, L McHugh of Steelweld.
In this game Marty’s rink started out well getting 1 in the 1st end and another 3 in the 2nd after Marty had a great shot to bury the jack to go 4-0 up. In the 3rd end they were holding shot again but Colum McHugh’s rink burned the jack to restart the end. They then took advantage of this to get 1 shot back and make it 4-1 after 3 ends.
In the 4th end John Murnaghan got an unlucky wick and burned the jack to restart the end. The restarted end was basically all well-executed drawing shots until Marty’s last bowl as he went with a controlled weight runner into the head. It just didn’t come off for him and Colum McHugh picked up another 1 shot to make the score 4-2 after 4 ends. In the 5th end Colum McHugh’s rink started off holding shot, but Seán Breen had 2 great bowls. The first one opened up the jack, and then he buried the jack in the ditch with his own bowl on top of it. And so the oriel rink went 5-2 up at the halfway point. In the 6th end Seán followed up again burying the jack once more to gain another 1 for the rink and make the score 6-2 after 6. In the 7th end Seán put the jack in the ditch once again. However this time his bowl didn’t stay with the jack and the end finished up with 1 shot to the Steelweld rink to make the score 6-3 to Marty.
Moving onto the 8th, Colum McHugh’s rink were holding a few shots and so Seán Breen knocked the jack off to restart the end for a 2nd time by the oriel rink. However at this point disaster struck. With the shot bowl going back-and-forth, Seán tried to squeeze his bowl through a small gap to land on top of the jack. However he was a little wide with this bowl, which knocked a bowl into the side of the jack and so the jack went off the mat once more. With this being the 3rd time Marty’s rink knocked the jack off, it resulted in a penalty of 3 shots to Colum McHugh and evened the game up at 6-6 with 2 ends to go.
The 9th end was touch and go the whole way, with the shot changing hands multiple times throughout. In the end though Marty was too wide with his last bowl and so they went into the final end 7-6 down. The final end was extremely tense with the jack slowly being knocked back after the first 2 players from each team. Both teams had an attempt at ditching the jack but both missed, and then D Davidson hit the jack into the right with it still in play. Colum then drew a great tight backhand bowl to be a few inches to the jack, and when Marty tried to match it he was a fraction short. Colum then missed with his final bowl meaning Marty had one last difficult shot to claim the end. However he was too tight with it leaving the Steelweld rink as national champions.
Hard luck to the guys who had played extremely well throughout and were very unlucky to burn the jack in the 8th end. Huge congratulations to Colum and the guys as they had a fantastic second half to the match and were also deserving winners.
The Oriel rink will still be able to represent Ireland in next season’s ‘A’ series Internationals, so best of luck to them with that!
Pairs
The last final of the day that had an Oriel team involved was in the Open pairs, with Diarmuid McMahon and Shane Hand of Corduff against Willie McCaw and A Tennant from St Coleman’s. Shane was looking to win his 2nd national title in as many hours, but it was never going to be easy in a 15 end match.
The Oriel pair started well picking up 2 shots in the 1st end, however Willie McCaw responded with 1 shot in both the 2nd and 3rd ends, making it 2-2. In the 4th end Shane missed a chance for 2, however they still came away with 1 to go 3-2 up. In the 5th Shane missed trailing the jack into the ditch by a whisker and Willie was able to take advantage to get 2 shots and regain the lead at 4-3. Diarmuid and Shane then levelled things back up at 4-4 after 6 ends. At this point the St Coleman’s pair started to take control of the match.
The 7th end was a mirror of the 5th, where Shane just missed hitting the jack into the ditch and Willie got 2 shots as a result, making it 6-4 to them. They got another shot then to go 7-4 up after 8 ends, and then another 2 shots in the 9th end leaving Shane and Diarmuid trailing 9-4. However Shane had 2 good bowls in the 10th end, and got another 1 in the 11th to make it 9-7 with 4 ends to go. In the 12th end Shane was a little tight with his final bowl meaning Willie McCaw was able to pick up an important shot to go 10-7 up.
In the 13th end, Willie picked up what turned out to be the killer blow, as they got 3 shots to make it a 13-7 game with 2 ends to go. This meant Diarmuid and Shane needed at least 2 shots in the 14th to at least take the game into the final end. However they were only able to get 1, and with the score at 13-8 Willie McCaw and A Tennant took home the National Pairs Title with an end to spare. Congratulations to them on a fantastic performance, and hard luck to Diarmuid and Shane.
The full videos of the finals can be viewed at the Oriel Zone YouTube page at youtube.com/@OrielZoneBowls . Make sure to subscribe to the channel!
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