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Former Armagh, Monaghan and Tyrone hurling boss Mattie Lennon has been confirmed as new manager of the Armagh Camogie Senior Team.
Lennon's appointment was ratified at a special meeting of the Armagh county board with strong support from club delegates. Mattie will be joined by his background team to take charge of the panel and will succeed Michaél Murphy & Pauric Dowdall, who historically managed the Armagh camogs to an All Ireland Junior win in 2020.
Lennon, an illustrious sportsman from St Mochua’s Derrynoose, served as Orchard & Monaghan hurling manager before spending the last 6 seasons with neighbours Tyrone.
Armagh Camogie spokesperson, Breda Cunningham commented, “We are delighted to welcome both Mattie and his background team to Armagh Camogie. Mattie’s passion & professional approach to the game is renowned and exactly what our county needs to spark future success given the momentous year that was 2020 with our All Ireland Junior win.
“We also wish to thank our outgoing management, Michaél Murphy & Pauric Dowdall along with their support team for the excellent service to Armagh Camogie.
“We look forward now with great hope to our games recommencing over the coming months”.
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November’s Ulster Rally will bring the curtain down on the 2021 British Rally Championship, with the Newry-based event acting as the sixth, and final, round of the mixed surface series. The event takes place 19 and 20 November 2021.
After an enforced delay, the British Rally Championship moves into gear in early July, with registered crews having to negotiate a total of five rounds in England, Scotland and Wales before they can begin to make plans for the short trip across the Irish Sea to the Ulster Rally.
The British Rally Championship was called off in June of last year after just one round due to the coronavirus health pandemic, with this also leading to the Ulster Rally being cancelled.
However, all stakeholders are confident a full campaign will take place this season given the speed at which the vaccine programme is currently being rolled out across the four nations.
Promoted by Northern Ireland Motor Club Limited, the Ulster Rally has been a mainstay of the British Rally Championship for many years – and organisers are pleased the tie-up is continuing. “The Ulster Rally is delighted to welcome the British Rally Championship back to Northern Ireland, and to our event, later in the year,” said Event Director Richard Swanston. “Hopefully, the fight for the many titles will come down to the last round and where better for the drivers to battle it out for the overall British Rally title than the tricky roads of Ulster?
“The weather has always played a big part – and had a big say – in our event, and with the Ulster Rally taking place in mid-November this year, I am confident that theme will continue.
“Plans are progressing well for the 2021 instalment of the Ulster Rally and I am sure it will provide a dynamic and exciting twist for all involved with the British Rally Championship.”
This is the first time the Ulster Rally is being held outside of its traditional August slot, and the British Rally Championship’s Manager believes the unpredictable climate in Northern Ireland in early winter will add another layer of intrigue to the UK’s blue riband rally series.
“The Ulster Rally is always a tough event that succeeds in serving up a short, sharp, shock of intense competition,” said Iain Campbell. “Just how the challenge will change with the November date, we will have to wait and see.
“But as a constant on the British Rally Championship calendar, we look forward to this being our final 2021 round – something that is also new for the Ulster Rally,” he added.
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Ulster GAA has been awarded nearly £6M from the Sport NI Sports Sustainability Fund programme.
The Sports Sustainability Fund programme award of £5.93m will support GAA clubs and units in the six counties.
The Sports Sustainability Fund is designed to help governing bodies of sport and clubs who have been financially impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. This funding has been administered by Sport NI with Ulster GAA collating a submission on behalf of affected units.
In all, 180 GAA clubs and units, including Ladies Football, Camogie and Handball, will share in this new funding that results in a total award of £7.38m to Ulster GAA from the Sports Sustainability Fund.
In the first wave of funding announced earlier this month, Ulster GAA, as the governing body for Gaelic games in Ulster, received £1.44m to help the organisation recover from the financial impacts of the pandemic.
The successful clubs and units will be notified of their awards today and all funding will be distributed by 31 March.
Welcoming the latest announcement, Ulster GAA Chief Executive Officer and Provincial Secretary Brian McAvoy said “On behalf of our Clubs and units, I again wish to sincerely thank the Executive, the Department for Communities and Sport NI for their overall management of this funding process that will help greatly to sustain the sports sector at this difficult time”
“Ulster GAA staff have worked closely with our Clubs and units over the last few months to ensure their applications and supporting documentation met the Fund criteria, so we are delighted with this level of successful applicants.”
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Every indication is that there will be some return to sport in the area, when the current Covid restrictions are lifted on April 12.
Training will be permitted but for St Colman’s College Head of PE Cathal Murray, it comes too late for his players, although he says he is committed to helping those students who have struggled in life without sport.
“I think the lack of sport could have an impact on our young people in the long-term. They got a bit of football during the summer but really, they have gone the best part of 12 months with no football,” said Murray.
“For lads that usually are so active and see playing sport as a release because they are doing something they enjoy, sport is more than doing something physical, the challenge that lads have and the discipline they experience from being involved in training at schools, clubs and counties is important.
“They need to get back to it. I had a lad come to me asking could he go out onto the field, he brought his own balls and his boots, so he didn’t have to touch the school footballs, he just needed to get out onto a pitch and have a kickabout and this is what we are dealing with. It is so important and rewarding to their lives.”
Before most of his pupils returned back to the classrooms Murray chose to travel to the College where he gave his online class simply to get out of his house and develop some form of routine.
Murray, who managed St Colman’s to back-to-back Hogan Cups in 2010-2011 and has been involved at inter-county management with Down and Louth as well as at club level with Carryduff this season, admits he is keen for the restrictions to be lifted but he is aware how much more acute the issues are for the youth of today.
“From my point of view there would normally be barely a night where I would have been stuck in the house, if I wasn’t at training, I’d be watching underage football and looking at players and I just can’t wait to get back out to it again because being stuck in the house all the time isn’t good for anyone,” Murray said.
“And as much as us adults can probably deal with that it is the children who struggle to overcome those feelings of being stuck in the same room with the same four walls closing in around them.”
Ulster Schools GAA made the decision in February that there would be no schools GAA this season, with September the target for the ban to be lifted.
Murray said he was disappointed with the decision and he felt that there could be ways to find a solution to allow competitive games to go ahead for those in their final year.
“A lot of these boys are sitting in their bedrooms, looking at four walls, were doing classes online and following the timetable between 9am and 3.30pm,” he said.
“They would have been so active at school and any inkling or hope that there might be MacRory Cup being taken away from them hit a lot of the boys really hard. A lot of the boys struggled with the decision and while all the boys are coming back at our school, I have heard stories of boys from other schools deciding that if there is no football then they are not going back to school, because the grades are going to be based on the teachers’ opinion.”
One solution may have been to play the games in May and June as there are no exams in the six counties, but exams will take place in Monaghan, Cavan and Donegal during those months and of course no-one knows how the virus will be affecting our lives in a few months’ time. But with no sign of school sport returning before the end of the school year, it won’t be an easy time for many children and Murray insists that the student’s mental wellbeing is a top priority.
“We at the school will be there for the boys who need support and show them that we care and that we are more than just teachers and managers, but people who will look out for their welfare and care about how they are feeling,” Murray said.
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Armagh GAA have announced the winners of their Club All-Star Awards 2020. The event hosted online by Jimmy Smyth brought the awards to an even larger audience than usual.
Smyth said "In normal times we would have had a celebratory awards night for all our recipients but tonight we get to bring the awards to an even wider audience to recognise our 15 club All-Stars and our individual awards for club and county."
Speaking about the year none of us will forget Smyth continued "At the start of 2020 just before the club season was due to commence the pandemic hit and the country went into lockdown. None of us knew what lay ahead and whether or not we would even have a football or hurling club season. Well our clubs rose to the challenge supporting rural and urban communities across the county delivering food parcels and shopping, working with community pharmacies to deliver prescriptions to the most vulnerable and staying connected to the local people. The response was simply amazing and was something that people will never forget."
Over 70% of County Armagh clubs were involved in community response with 637 volunteers supporting 4,032 local people.
Aidan Forker was awarded County Footballer of the Year. Forker said "The team, we're obviously very close now, being together on this path for a number of years. For them to recognise me as having a good decent year and performing. It means a lot.
"I've worked hard, upped my game, I think over the last couple of years I've started to become a bit more stable in my performances, stable in my temperment a bit too, its helped, but it's a great honour to be recognised and be among the named players that have gone before me"
Nathan Curry was awarded both Senior Hurler of the Year and County Hurler of the Year. Curry said "The personal accolade is just something that goes along with the team effort. That's the way I would see it.
"There is a lot of youth coming through in Armagh and its trying to pull those players through while keeping the experienced there within the squad as well so I think the future is bright within Armagh Hurling. There's quite a lot of young capable players. They will take time to adjust and get up to that standard but you can definitely see that the talent is there within the clubs."
The Middletown Hurler thinks promotion should be the aim within the next number of seasons "I think the main aim is to get out of that division, get promoted to a higher division and play a higher quality of hurling. Again that will pull more players towards the county setup" said Curry.
Armagh GAA Club All-Star Team of the Year
Individual Awards
Underage Referee of the Year: Stephen Murray
Hurling Referee of the Year: Ronan Harte
Football Referee of the Year: Kevin Faloon
Scor Club of the Year: St Patrick’s Cullyhanna
Volunteer of the Year: Sam McClatchey
Junior Hurler of the Year: Tiarnan O’Hare
Senior Hurler of the Year: Nathan Curry
Junior Footballer of the Year: Tony Canning
Intermediate Footballer of the Year: Stefan Campbell
Senior Footballer of the Year: Brian Fox
County Hurler of the Year: Nathan Curry
County Footballer of the Year: Aidan Forker
Chairman’s Award: Paul Heaney and Kevin Fox (Armagh TV)
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Newry City AFC manager Darren Mullen can’t wait to get back to the training pitch this Tuesday, 13 April.
Like so many other sports teams throughout the district it will be the first time they will train as a collective this year as government restrictions eases.
Mullen’s target for Newry City is promotion back to the Premiership, in the meantime he is still hoping that championship clubs will be granted elite status and the Ballyholland man can foresee an all-Ireland football league as well as summer football.
Having signed a to-year deal in February he has been busy securing the services of players, with many re-signing and the recent signing of former Warrenpoint Town star Philip Donnelly, just shows Mullen’s intentions. But first he has to get back to the Showgrounds.
“We are back on Tuesday night for our first training session, so I will be just glad to get back onto the pitch,” Mullen said.
“We have kept in touch through social messaging and zoom classes, but you can’t be sitting on your hands in terms of next season so that work is always on-going, so I have been having discussions with coaches and the players throughout the pandemic, so I think everybody will be delighted just to kick a ball on Tuesday night.
“We had Engine [player Darren King] and Stevie Lawless doing zoom classes and they have been terrific, we have even done yoga and quizzes and that type of thing to vary it a bit, but it is hard to beat kicking a ball about the pitch and having a bit of banter out on the training pitch again. That is something that we have all missed, so we are looking forward to it.
“It is a year lost for those fellas in not only fitness but general well-being and meeting up with everyone and to get some sort of normality. It has affected everybody in a lot of ways in all walks of life, but in footballing terms it is a year lost for us.”
There has been nothing to suggest that next season won’t start around the normal time of August and Mullen is planning ahead but he doesn’t want the elite status to become an issue again.
“There is still our fight for elite status, we still haven’t been given it,” said Mullen.
“The last thing we want is a similar thing to happen again because we are not deemed Elite. We have asked NIFL [Northern Ireland Football League] for another meeting and we will wait and see what happens from that.”
“When you look outside of football, people are getting vaccinated and with the over 40s being able to book vaccines now, so you would like to think by the time we come around to the start of the league in the summer that the vast majority of people will have had their jab and we can get back to some sort of normality.
“We have been very careful when it comes to sanitising players coming in and the equipment and players getting their temperatures checked, so we would like to think that we would be set-up for the new season.
Mullen backs the idea of playing Irish League football during the summer, especially if other variants of the Covid virus become prevalent in the winter, but says it has to done in the right manner and certainly warrants further discussion. And he sees an all-Ireland league as a possibility in the future, but he wants the so-called smaller clubs to be looked after.
“There is certainly an argument for it, and I know Kieran Lucid had put forward proposals before,” Mullen said.
“When you look at other leagues in different countries like some of the Scandinavian leagues, they are full time and are making a lot of money out of it and in some point in time that has to happen, but it has to be done in a manner so that other teams are not cut off or left stranded.
“It can’t be an elite environment that will have a detrimental effect on other teams, possibly like ourselves. You like to see elite teams in any country but not so there is a massive gap between top and bottom.”
Darren also took on the management role of Ballyholland camogs last year, they won the Down intermediate championship in his first season in charge, and he is looking forward to another season with the women.
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The NI Executive have confirmed that structured outdoor training for sports organisations, in groups of up to 15 people (including coaches), can resume from today 12 April and the GAA have set out their guidelines.
A GAA spokesperson said "Having GAA activity return to our fields is a positive and most welcome development but we remain in a pandemic and there is an onus on everyone to minimise risk and to play their part in ensuring that all protocols are observed. By doing this we will ensure that there is no further undue delay in our desire to ensure a full return to GAA activity at the earliest possible opportunity."
It's a cautious first step on the pathway out of lockdown and the following on-pitch group numbers apply;
Adults (18+) – one group size limit 15 on the pitch
Age 13-18 – maximum two groups of 15 on the pitch (no mixing of groups)
Age 12 and below – maximum three groups of 15 (no mixing of groups)
Contact training should be kept to a minimum and the playing of matches is not permitted.
It is essential that both Executive and GAA protocols are observed at all times in particular clubs should ensure that they;
An updated version of the GAA Return to Train/Play guidance is being finalised by the GAA’s Covid Advisory Group and this will be issued to clubs in the near future.
Inter-county senior training is scheduled to re-commence on Monday 19th April.
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A wee cycling story that concerns a person in the news.
In the early nineties lots of cyclists did the Maracycle – a 100-mile trip from Belfast to Dublin on the Saturday and the return journey back to Belfast the next day.
I, along with a few local riders, joined a big group leaving Belfast. We saw these two guys in front of us, who were obviously posers as they were clad in all-yellow gear. We stepped up the pace and passed them - but almost right away the chancers jumped to the front again.
Someone said: ‘Let them stay there … sure they’ll take us all the way to Dublin.’
So we let them stay at the front.
The pace was steady and everything was fine until we came to our own Dublin Road hill, on the other side of Newry.
As we climbed I began to struggle for breath and was having trouble staying with the yellow-clad posers.
But they seemed to be in no trouble at all. And despite the steep incline, and under no pressure, they continued to talk and joke.
Halfway up the hill I looked around and our big group had splintered all over the road with only two or three of us able to keep the yellow men in sight.
With a lot of trouble we got to the top and I moved up to talk to the pair of leaders. ‘Do you do the Mayacycle every year?’ I asked them.
I couldn’t believe it when they answered: ‘What’s the Maracycle?
‘What you’re doing today.’ I replied.
They explained: ‘No we are not doing the Maracycle. We were riding a crit in Belfast last night and we’re only out to loosen up our legs. Our team bus is to pick us up in Dundalk.’
Further questions, and we discovered the pair were members of the Banana-Falcon professional cycling team and they were in fact Chris Lillywhite, the best sprinter in Britain at the time, and Shane Sutton. Yes the same Shane Sutton who is currently at the centre of the Sky performance-enhancing drugs story along with Richard Freeman.
But in truth I don’t think Shane Sutton or Chris Lillywhite would have needed testosterone, corticosteroid or EPO to stay in front of our ragged Maracycle group on the Newry hill!
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The town was alive with the sound of laughter! In what was one of the most anticipated days in the mist of covid-19, Monday 12th April was like Christmas morning all over again! With restrictions easing, training permitted and schools back, our club coaches and mentors of all groups and sports opened the gates to the excited young (and not so young) of the club who wanted nothing more than to feel the turf, hold the hurl and appreciate the smell of the O’Neill’s leather again! With Pairc Liam Ui ir, Milltown and St.Marks all being utilised all week it was as if a collective weight had been lifted from the entire community. Many thanks to players, coaches and parents for the continued observance of covid measures and regulations.
In football, with the exception of the very youngest footballers all age groups returned to training this week. With boots, water bottles, cones and whistles dusted down it was all systems go, when the eagerly anticipated return finally arrived.
Our ladies football teams made their way back onto the pitches to get back into action. Judging by the numbers seen at all training sessions, the ladies were keen to get back & stuck into preparations for competitive action, once permissible. Whilst there was clearly some rustiness with the skills & fitness levels will need work, the enthusiasm certainly has not been diminished during the break. Great to see all the ladies back on the grass, with smiles on their faces.
The Senior & U17 Hurlers were first to break the imposed fast of lockdown & an absence from playing/training since the end of last summer. The U9s, U13s & U15s followed suit on Tuesday & Wednesday, with a good turnout, numbers at training were encouraging. Although all these teams were eager to get back & enjoyed being able to take to the Hurling fields and train with their friends & team mates, it was evident that everyone was just relieved & in need of getting back to some sort of normal active lifestyle. The most jubilation came from the excited U7’s who were back training on Friday, the excitement was palpable and encouraging for years ahead. A great deal of work has yet to be done with all age groups but with large numbers at u7’s and the seniors playing two championships this year (the 2020 JHC was curtailed due to the 2nd lockdown), there will be plenty to keep the coaches busy in 2021.
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