40 DONEGAL NEWS SPORT Friday, December 27, 2013
Jason Quigley claimed a silvermedal in the Middleweight divisionat the World Championships in Kaza-khstan.
Quigley became the first man towin better than bronze at the worldchampionships, and he boxed bril-liantly to reach the final. However,the Finn Valley ABC startlet just ranout of steam in the final losing tohome favourite Zhanibek Alimhanu-ly.
Quigley described the defeat as‘heartbreaking’ but added : “I givemy whole life to this sport and Iknow when I go away and look at it,I’ll be absolutely honoured to be thefirst Irish boxer ever to get this far.”
The Ballybofey man set a newrecord by winning 32 fights in a rowbefore the final, and he deliveredhuge performances in his quarter fi-nal win over Zoltan Harsca fromHungary and in the semi-finalagainst Russian Artem Chebotarev.
Glenswilly won the 2013 Radio naGaeltachta Donegal Senior Champi-onship after an awesome second halfdisplay in the final to beat Killybegs.
The fishermen made a real go of itin the first half, however, once GaryMcDaid’s men got to grips with Killy-begs there was only going to be onewinner and goals from Michael Mur-phy, Neil Gallagher and Ciaran Bon-ner helped them to a 3-19 to 2-6 win.
Murphy’s role in the final was un-der spotlight after he lined out withthe Ireland International Rules teamon the Saturday night in Cavan. How-ever, he produced a mesmerisingperformance against Killybegs toprove his doubters wrong.
“It’s football: It’s what I enjoy do-ing, what I love., and as a young fellaif you were told you would play foryour country and then our club in acounty final, you’d take that,” saidMurphy after he collected the man of
the match award.Glenswilly had held off a late
fightback from Ardara to reach thedecider, while the Fishermen defeat-ed Malin to make the final.
Naomh Muire won the Intermedi-ate championship with an emphaticwin over St Naul’s. An early goalfrom Shaun ‘Yank’ Boyle sent themon their way, and they never lookedliked losing. Captain Paul Boyle dedi-cated their win to his clubmateConor Boyle, who tragically lost hislife before the final.
Second half goals from Martin Colland Ryan Ferry won Gaoth Dobhairthe Senior Reserve championship inthe curtain raiser to the senior final.
St Eunan’s won Division 1 of theAll County League, while Glenswillycompleted an excellent month byclinching the Division 2 league witha win over neighbours Termon.
St Nauls’ were crowned Division 3champions, while Fanad Gaels joinedthem in winning promotion to thesecond tier after a win over local ri-vals Downings. Milford won the Divi-sion 4 league, by defeating Convoy.
Termon were seconds from win-ning the Ulster Club Senior Ladieschampionship, but the Monaghanchampions fought back to force adraw, and won the replay comfort-ably. Milford also lost out in the In-termediate decider to a last-gaspWatty Grahams point.
Ireland destroyed Australia in theInternational rules winning by an ag-gregate score of 173-72. Michael Mur-phy captained Ireland to the CormacMcAnallen trophy, and he played acaptain’s role alongside his countyteammates Paddy McBrearty andNeil McGee.
The big soccer news of the monthwas Peter Hutton’s resignation fromFinn Harps before Harps’ victoryover Athlone Town. Sean McGowan
stepped into the breach to replacethe Derry native. Hutton admittedthat he had ‘underestimated thetask.’
Harps finished the season in sixthposition after a stalemate withSalthill Devon in their last game ofthe season. Cockhill Celtic onceagain got the upper hand on Drum-keen United, beating them 5-4 in anenthralling match in the Intermedi-ate cup. Mickey Rodgers’ Drumkeenled 3-1, but the Inishowen men cameback to lead 4-3. Chris Kyle equalisedin injury time, but his efforts were invain, as Mark Moran struck the win-ner just as both teams looked re-signed to penalties.
Letterkenny Rovers advanced tothe fourth round alongside Cockhillafter a 6-2 win over Bonagee, whileSwilly Rovers also made it throughto the next round after beating Kil-drum Tigers.
Austeja Auciute won her eighthIrish title when she defeatedKayleigh McCormack in the 64kgs fi-nal at the National under 22 Champi-onships. It was the Finn Valley ABCstar’s third national title of 2013.
Letterkenny’s Tommy McCaffertycontinued his undefeated assault onthe professional ranks of mixed mar-tial arts after he beat Ben Davis infront of a packed crowd at the Mille-nium Forum.
Letterkenny cyclist Conor McEl-waine made a big move forward inhis career by signing a top competi-ton level contract with Belgium-based team Terra Footwear.
Monaghan man Gary McPhillipswas the winner of the 2013 HarvestStages Rally after a day of high dra-ma in West Donegal.
St Johnston’s Bridie Lynch wasone of three individuals who were in-ducted into the Paralympics IrelandHall of fame.
SPORTS REVIEW – OCTOBER
Celebration time for the Glenswilly team after defeating Killybegs.
Michael Murphy, man of the match for Glenswilly, winning the Senior Countychampionship less than 24 hours after captaining Ireland to a win over Australiain the International Rules first leg at Breffni park. Photo: Donna McBride
