Pitch & Putt Ireland2015 Provincial Juvenile Matchplay Preview
A look at tomorrow's action in both Larkspur Park and Ratoath
TOMORROW sees the Provincial Juvenile Matchplay Championships take place in both Larkspur Park (Munster) and Ratoath (Leinster). Communications & Press Officer Jason O’Connor takes a brief look ahead to proceedings at both venues.
Munster
31 players have entered for proceedings in Cashel with the host club providing six of the entries (Adam Buckley, Sean O’Neill, James O’Sullivan, Ben and Luke White along with Brian Flavin). In the wider Tipperary area, there are a further two entries with Conor Keating (Lakeside) and Sean Crowe (Riverdale) both representing the North Tipperary clubs.
Crowe will face the defending champion and winner of last year’s event in St Stephens, Ryan Towler from St Annes in the last match of the First Round. Ryan’s brother Glenn, who he defeated in a memorable semi-final last year, is also in action and he will face St Annes’ Cian Murphy in what will be an interesting encounter. Raffen Creek of Cork have the biggest single entry of any club in tomorrow’s proceedings with eight and unsurprisingly there is one meeting between two players from the club in the First Round as Kevin Dullea will take on Ruairi Mehigan.
Another player from the club, Phillip Dorney has received a bye into the Last 16 and he will await the winner of the match between Lorcan Martin from Deerpark and James O’Sullivan from the hosts. Deerpark themselves have seven entries tomorrow with another all club meeting in the First Round seeing Conor Quirke take on Darragh O’Callaghan. The meeting of Majestic’s Edward Walsh and Ian O’Donoghue from Raffen Creek is another match to look out for tomorrow while David Howard of Raffen Creek faces Ben Flavin from the hosts.
With the distance only over 18 holes until the Final of 36, it will act as a great leveller in some of the matches tomorrow and it will be interesting to see who makes it through the quick fire action and into the decider later on in the afternoon.
Leinster
15 players will take part in tomorrow’s event in Ratoath, Co Meath. Three of last year’s semi-finalists from the inaugural event in Athgarvan have entered, namely Evan Carry (Castletown, the eventual runner-up to Aaron Monaghan), another Meath player in Christopher Woods (Bellewstown) and Cian Montgomery (Lucan). Ratoath have two entries in Sean Yourell and John Foley but they face tough tasks in facing Old County’s Ross O’Reilly (last year’s Leinster Juvenile Strokeplay winner) and Carry respectively.
Christopher Woods faces Navan’s Liam O’Carroll in an all Meath First Round encounter while Cian Montgomery has an all Dublin match with Darragh Cullen of Old County. Another Dublin player, Craig Hennessy of Longmeadows has a bye in the quarter-finals where he will face either Gaeil Colmcille’s Sean Bellows or Skyrne’s Jack Dardis (the third all Meath tie in the First Round) in the last eight. Interestingly there are two Collinstown vs. Longmeadows ties in the First Round as Brian Bray will take on Lennon Blake while Jack Buckley will take on Conor O’Reilly in the two meetings of the Westmeath and Dublin clubs.
Much like Munster it will be a quick sprint to the Final followed by a 36 hole decider to determine only the second ever winner of this event in the province.
Updates on proceedings in both provinces will be available on the PPUI website all throughout tomorrow. We wish everyone involved a safe journey to both of tomorrow’s venues.
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