New champion Triona Murphy wins her first adult championship

TRIONA Murphy’s exciting last-shot win in the junior ladies final at Leap brought the curtain down on Carbery’s regional championships for 2023.

The last of the season’s 18 competition deciders was a cracking shot-for-shot shoot-out between the Skeagh woman and previous two-time winner, Aisling Crowley, Bauravilla.

Crucial to the outcome was Triona’s super opening throw. Playing away from Kilmacabea cross, her well-drilled effort yielded a 60-metre lead. In typical Crowley fashion, Aisling rallied, and no more than a few metres separated them at the bend beyond Mealasheen.

Triona lined a good ninth on to the ‘flat’ and it pushed her 40 ahead, but it stayed in the melting pot right to the line at ‘Pad the forge’s’. Defiantly the western contender held off Aisling’s continuing challenge and won her first adult championship by 30 metres with her 15th throw. Triona, who won successive underage titles in 2017 and ’18, was presented with the Eibhlis McCarthy Cup by Louise McCarthy.

She is the first holder of the new trophy presented to the Carbery region for the junior ladies’ championship by the McCarthy family, Leap. Triona will pit her skills against South West’s rising star Ellen Sexton in the quarter-final round of the county championship.

Scores at Rosscarbery and Caheragh progressed in novice tournaments. Mick Flor Cup winner Damien Daly won a good novice D score at Rosscarbery, defeating Newcestown’s Tim Allen in the last shot for €1,200 while, at Caheragh, in the doubles competition, the Bauravilla pairing of David McCarthy and James Herlihy got he verdict over Brendan O’Driscoll and his partner, Oisin Daly.