HANDBALL IS ENJOYING a moment at present and further evidence was provided at Croke Park yesterday when Galway and Cork produced two sizeable upsets in a pair of thrilling oneills.com All-Ireland Senior Doubles finals.
When the long-awaited €8 million National Handball Centre finally opened its doors last year, after well over a decade-long saga involving legal wrangling, the first matches of significance were the doubles deciders.
And they went to script – Cork’s Catriona Casey and Aishling O’Keeffe defeated Galway’s Ciana Ní Churraoin and Niamh Heffernan in the Ladies final (albeit in an 11-10 tiebreaker) and Clare’s Diarmaid Nash and Colin Crehan beat the Rebels’ Daniel Relihan and Michael Hedigan in the Men’s final.
The novelty factor of senior deciders finally returning to HQ was great but nothing generates a buzz like upsets and young pretenders taking on the dominant champions. But if that was missing in 2023, handball fans got it yesterday as Ní Churraoin and Heffernan and Relihan and Hedigan dethroned Casey and O’Keeffe and Nash and Crehan respectively.
The Ballydesmond women were gunning for an eighth Senior Doubles title in the 4-wall code and looked on course when they won the first game 21-18 but the Claregalway/Micheál Breathnachs combination won the second 21-15 to force a tiebreaker, which they won emphatically, 11-0.
The hurt of losing their first senior final together drove them on, said former Galway underage camogie star Heffernan.
“In my opinion we should have won that (the 2023 final) as well. Aishling and Catriona are very good players and there’s a reason why they have won it the last good few years. For me personally, it has haunted me ever since,” admitted the 22-year-old.
Ní Churraoin, a 27-year-old sports psychologist, added: “Niamh texted me the next day and I was like, ‘come on, next year’.”
Ní Churraoin, who scored two goals for Galway minor ladies footballers in their All-Ireland ‘A’ final win over Dublin in 2014, will now attempt to retain her Singles title, which she won last year by beating Casey for the first time, also in a tiebreaker.
Meanwhile, Clare and Cork served up an absolute humdinger in the Men’s final, with Cork winning 17-21, 14-21, 11-10 in a game instantly recognised as a classic.
Nash and Crehan, aiming for their fourth title, started well, with the explosive Crehan finding his range on kills but after dropping game one, the Liscarroll men came roaring back to tie the game.
Relihan’s attacking play and Hedigan’s “thou shalt not pass” right-side masterclass saw them force a ‘breaker – and there was little to choose between them in the race to 11, with neither side able to pull away and each rally bitterly contested.
A spectacular left-handed kill by Hedigan at 9 was a highlight as the Rebels managed to close it out for their first 4-wall senior title amid joyous scenes.
“We don’t tend to do things easily. We just said we’d keep fighting,” said Relihan. “We knew the Clare boys were going to get on top at certain parts of the game but we said we’d keep our heads.
“Colin especially, he’s a shooter and he can hit a purple patch at any time really so we just had to keep the heads, keep doing what we were doing. We had a game plan and we stuck to it.”
The matches were streamed live on the Sport TG4 YouTube page, as part of a new agreement which has also seen handball, in its centenary year, return to national television, with highlights each Monday night on TG4.
Next up is the oneills.com All-Ireland Senior Singles, which serves off next weekend at regional venues.
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