The yearly John O’Keeffe memorial cup took place on Sunday 1st Dec at Mallow Handball club. This prestige’s event to commemorate one of our founding fathers was entering its 4th successive year and is a coveted prize amongst the seasoned members of the club and one in which the winner has certain bragging rights for the year. This year again saw a strong line up from the senior section of the club with some younger members also being blooded for the event.
The Eamonn Murphy Cup a one-off tournament took place on Saturday the 30th of November to remember one of our founding fathers. The tournament commissioned by the late Eamonn’s extended family was to incorporate a mix of youth and experience.
Some of our younger members got there first taste of their future handballing careers playing with and against our most senior of players including world and All Ireland champions.
Mallow secured their place in this year’s all-Ireland Inter club semi-final by winning the Junior B Munster championship defeating Broadford in Cappagh last night. In what turned out to be a titanic battle Mallow retained their Munster crown by a score line of 121-82.
First in was Ryan Harkin who had been showing good form of late and this shone through in the first game winning by a margin of 21-3
Boys and girls from 6-9 years of age took part in today’s blitz in Mallow. These blitz’s are designed to give Juveniles experience of playing in different alleys, with other players that they may well encounter during the season. Players from neighbouring clubs including Liscarroll, Ballydesmond and Kilworth were present today with some of their brightest and youngest stars.
Following their impressive win over Kerry’s Glenbeigh last Monday night at the quarter final stage team Mallow within the space of three days faced Limerick’s Hospital in the Junior B semi-final of this year’s All-Ireland Inter-club championship. Hospital a renowned Mecca of the 60×30 code had a formidable line up for this year’s event.
Today marked the official opening of the Juvenile 40 20 season with the Boherbue blitz for under 10/11 age group category. A large group of individuals showed up for what was to be a fun day of timed games with the emphasis on each player getting a minimum of two-three games each to start off their season of competition.As luck would have it, the opening game consisted of club mates and friends Ethan Murphy and Eric Delany pitched against each other with Eric partnering Evan Enright and Ethan partnering Liam Moynihan.
Mallow came through with an impressive win against Tipperary’s Carraig on Suir in Cashel to book a spot in the last eight of this year’s Junior B Inter club 40
20 championship.
Mallow who dominated from the off started well when Ryan Harkin playing his first competitive game in quite a while took to the court. Ryan who had not been at his usual 100% came up against a well seasoned character in Davy Tobin, took a commanding lead in the first going up 7 aces at the start but from here on in things