Mayo U15 B Team crowned All Irleand Champions while James Brennan secures the U12 Singles title for Mayo.
It may have been championship Sunday at the US Masters but for Mayo’s young Pool players the only championships that mattered were the All Ireland underage championships in Navan where a youthful Mayo B side defied all the odds to win the U15 Team Championships defeating a strong Derry team in the final
Remarkably this team managed by Paul Neary with four 10 year olds in the team are the All Ireland team champions. Paul Neary Jn, Darragh Gaughan, Lorcan Barrett and Charlie Gaughan joined by the experienced Keylan Shevlin went on to win the title after coming through a tough route to the final.
On Saturday they began with a 5-4 defeat to Wicklow B but they followed this up with final frame deciders against Meath B and Leitrim A to reach the Last 16 on Sunday morning.
Highly fancied Wexford A were up next and the lads had to dig deep as they went 4-3 behind before Paul Neary made it 4-4 and Darragh Gaughan held his nerve in the deciding frame to book their place in the Quarter Finals. In the Last 8 they were too strong for Derry B as they came through by five frames to two which set up an all Mayo clash in the semi-finals.
Mayo A would have been highly fancied to reach the final but once again it was Mayo B who came through another final frame decider as Lorcan Barrett was the hero this time to book their place in the final against Derry A.
At this stage these lads had showed they weren’t there to make up the numbers and they proved this once again with an excellent performance to take the title back to Mayo.
After the first session of three frames they held a 2-1 lead with Darragh and Lorcan winning the first and third frames while Paul was unlucky to lose the middle of the three frames. Derry superstar Archie Henderson then levelled the scores at 2-2 but Mayo took the next frame thanks to Paul Neary and then Lorcan Barrett put them on the hill by taking frame 6. Darragh Gaughan was next up and he wasn’t going to let this moment pass as he took the frame at the second attempt to the delight of his teammates and all the Mayo support who were there to cheer the team on.
In the U12 Singles it was Balla’s James Brennan who showed his class to take the title home to Mayo as he came through a field of 50 players to beat Conor Doyle 3-1 in the final. James was always in control as he came through the early stages with wins over Ollie Welsh, Rylee Chubb and Jack Foy as he only dropped one frame in reaching the Quarter Finals. He then faced fellow Mayo player Darragh Gaughan and he came through by three frames to one. This set up a semi-final against Jack McVeigh and James had to pull out all the stops to reach the final in the deciding frame.
James always looked comfortable in the final and went onto beat Conor Doyle 4-1 as he sealed yet another win on the Irish tour and became the All Ireland U12 Champion in style.
Congratulations to our U15 team and to James on their wins earlier today and well done to all the teams and management for their performances over the weekend.
It’s great to see Mayo Pool continue to thrive and a special mention must go to Jack Coyle for all his hard work over the last few years in developing the youngsters into All Ireland Champions.
