Owenies Bar, Dungloe, were recently beaten in the final of the Westmeath Open Pub/Club Challenge.
With over €2k of prizemoney on offer, two teams from Donegal travelled to Mullingar to compete in the five-man competition; the other team being Teac Jacks from Gweedore.
Both teams made it out of the group stages but Teac Jacks were beaten by the eventual winners, Balreask from Meath, in their quarter final.
Owenies, on the other hand, had some fine victories en route to the final; none more so than their win over a strong Tyrone team that had three members of the team that were All-Ireland A-Team champions in 2014.
They followed that up with a comfortable 11-5 victory over a local Mullingar team in the semi final.
It was expected that the final would be a tight affair as Owenies had actually beaten Balreask in the group stages. Indeed, the scoreline was nip and tuck for much of the early stages.
Balreask established an 8-6 advantage and then went on to play some imperious pool, eventually running out 13-6 winners.
Best for the Donegal lads were Shaun Sharkey and Niall McDaid.
The players also received sponsored tops from C&C Windows and Doors, Delvin.
In other news, the final qualifying competition for the Donegal Pool Teams takes place this Saturday in Jameson’s Bar, Drumkeen. It promises to be an exciting event as many of the places on the A and B teams are still undecided and a good result could still propel quite a few players into automatic qualification.
Congratulations also to Shaun Sharkey who picked up a Donegal Sports Star Award for an incredible year at a function in The Mount Errigal Hotel last night.
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