FROM JUNIOR CYCLE TO LEAVING THE SENIORS IN HER WAKE – SHAUNA’S RIDING HIGH
Still a student but undoubtedly on the way to becoming a master of her discipline – that’s Letterkenny girl, Shauna McFadden, who, as a junior rider, finished second in a field of senior competitors in the Pheonix CC Grand Prix event at the weekend.
Eighteen women in all took to the starting line in the event, part of the WCU Road Race League, and it was the teenager, a member of the Nicolas Roche Performance Team, who stole the limelight. Or rather earned the limelight.
This, you should know if you don’t already, represented the Loreto Convent student’s debut in senior women’s racing – and what a debut!
She finished behind race winner, Katharine Smyth from Team Madigan and in front of the 3rd place, Jane Millar of Bann Wheelers, two prestigious riders in senior cycling.
The subsequent rounds of the event wheels around this Saturday with the Castlereagh John Moore memorial event and the Newry Wheelers John Haldane Memorial on the following day.
It’s likely that the seventeen other women who started last weekend’s event won’t have been over wary of the presence of a young Donegal competitor. But they will now.
I have been reading Nicolas Roche’s book on life as a professional cyclist, ‘Inside the Peleton’ in which he lends quite a few favourable mentions to his good friend and rival, Philip Deignan. Roche was racing in the Tour de l’Avenir (Tour of the Future) in France in 2006, and had this to say about the Letterkenny man after the Cote du Voisinal stage at the end of which Roche was edging into the lead:
“I wasn’t climbing as well as Philip and in the 25km-long Col de la Vie Neuve Mairie, with 60km to go, Philip went clear, with only Remi di Gregorio of Francaise des Jeux able to follow his pace.
“Philip had missed much of the 2006 season with, first, a broken collarbone and then glandular fever. Two months before the race, he couldn’t even do an hour on the bike, and at l’Avenir he was probably only about 60 per cent fit, but his ride that day was sheer class. Even though he were on different teams, he had tried to help me keep my yellow jersey the day before, but hadn’t got the legs.”
There’s hardly a likelihood that Roche will be up against young Shauna McFadden in the competitive world of professional cycling but my guess is that if he pens another book at some stage (Book of the Future) he’ll be lauding the achievements of Deignan’s fellow townie who is surely destined for even greater things in the world of pedal power.
LEVELLING THE PLAYING PITCH
On March 11th, Finn Harps will make their first away trip of the season following their return to the Premier League. Every game in the new season will bring with it specific difficulties for a team who will be strongly tipped to go straight down to the First Division again and no more so that the match at Oriel Park, home of the champions for the past two seasons and looking likely to make it a hat-trick in 2016.
Dundalk have undoubtedly been the kingpins of the League of Ireland since Stephen Kenny took over and have deservedly won the plaudits and the points for the way they play the game. I won’t be surprised if they advance further than any of the domestic clubs in Europe this year.
Nothing should be taken from them in that respect but I do have one bugbear in relation to the County Louth outfit. And that’s the Oriel Park pitch, the only League of Ireland surface that is artificial.
Notwithstanding the recent concerns raised in regard to potential health issues surrounding synthetic surfaces – a “witches brew of toxic substances” as one expert put it – there has always been an unease in this mind about the advantages to clubs who play regularly on such pitches.
For surely, if a group of players are used to passing the ball around on such artificial surfaces, there has to be an advantage gained over those teams who play on the traditional grass most weeks in a season.
Teams coming up against the current Dundalk at Oriel Park surely find it difficult enough at the venue without being burned in two senses of the term on the pitch.
Time to level the playing field in this regard and I won’t be altering my opinion on this even if Harps come away with a surprise result in a couple of weeks time.
MAYO ALL IRELAND CHAMPIONS!
So there you have it. If we’ve read this rightly, Mayo will be the All-Ireland Champions. In fact ARE the All-Ireland Champions.
Or was it Castlebar Mitchels, he was talking about. He? Our great white leader, Inda Kinny. That he.
Addressing an election rally – come on now, surely you know there’s one on – in his home patch at the weekend, the current Taoiseach told party supporters: “God knows we have some All-Ireland champions here in Mayo. I don’t mean Castlebar Mitchels. “
Well, of course he didn’t mean Castlebar Mitchels. The last time they were at the cutting edge of an All-Ireland was in 2014 when they beaten in the Final by St. Vincent’s. And runners-up, also, back in 1994.
So no All-Ireland champions there.
As for the Mayo inter-county team, well the Curse of 1951 still trawls then like an election promise gone missing.
But wait. Inda did clarify his comments on his native county’s aspirations to being All-Ireland champions, not, it seems, at anything in Gaelic football territory: “I mean the whingers that I hear every week saying there’s nothing happening.”
All-Ireland Champions at whinging. Seems about right.
They’ve done nothing but whinge about THAT curse for the past sixty-five years.
EAMON PUTS THE BLINKERS ON
Could have been a particularly nasty injury for West Bromwich Albion’s Chris Brunt when that coin, thrown by one of his team’s own supporters, struck him just below the eye. Any higher and football might have had to stop turning a blind eye to such incidents.
Ironically, the Northern Ireland international had gone over to the visiting fans after the F.A. Cup defeat at Reading to hand over his jersey to a young supporter.
On the same weekend, three coins were picked off the pitch by the referee officiating at the Chelsea/Manchester City game – flung onto it from the home end after the visitors grabbed an equalizer.
And (not literally on the lighter side), a supporter was arrested at the same game for throwing a cigarette lighter onto the Stamford Bridge pitch.
Not something you’d see happening at an Irish sports venues, according to R.T.E. analyst, Eamon Dunphy. “We’re lucky in this country we have fantastic fans and the atmosphere around games is brilliant in all sports, so we don’t have that kind of shocking behaviour in football grounds or any other grounds,” he insisted this week.
Perhaps, he doesn’t see much from his comfortable studio but I’ve certainly observed things thrown onto pitches here including bottles and coins (no change there).
And where has Mr.Dunphy been when those outbreaks of violence involving supporters have broken out at G.A.A. club matches over the past few years and at some of the League of Ireland games involving Bohemians and his own former club, Shamrock Rovers?
I suppose he became immune to it all after playing at the old Den and watching the fearsome Millwall Boys in action off the pitch.
EDDIE’S ROCKETS
Eddie Jones is racking it up before next Saturday’s Six Nations showdown at Twickenham against the Boys in Green.
First, the newly appointed England coach urged his team to play on the fact that the English rugby team is hated everywhere (not least, he forget to add, by his own native Australia).
And then he took a swipe at Ireland’s style of play under Joe Schmidt with the following assertion: “They kick 70 per cent of their ball away. If they want to do that, good luck to them. It has worked for them. It is not the way I think you should play rugby, but it has been successful for them, so good luck.”
Don’t think he actually meant that ‘good luck’ bit certainly not for this weekend’s game and, to be fair, he does have a point. But Ireland’s crippling injury problems and the loss of that giant of a player through retirement, Paul O’Connell, has meant changes in the system and it hasn’t been easy to watch with one point on the board to date and indeed a similar points difference.
But look out for the English pack targeting Johnny Sexton from the start to get a glimpse of how the game “should be played”.
CUP TESTER
Letterkenny Rovers might need more than home advantage to overcome their F.A.I. Intermediate Cup quarter-final, Killester United this Sunday.
But at least they have that and it should draw a decent crowd to Leckview for the tie.
The hosts have taken care of Cockhill Celtic, Dunboyne AFC, and Midleton to reach this stage with mixed performances in those games.
Killester will provide a sterner test for Eamon McConigley team’s who will, I suspect, do very well – will have to do very well – to advance to the semi-finals.
LINKS FROM THE PAST
Here’s a picture taken at the Lisfannon links at Buncrana last week. Or it would have been last week had last week fallen in the early years of the last century.
I came across this image in a book of old Irish photographs and, as you can see, there’s a putt looking destined for the hole and at least two of the foursome willing it not to go in!
It’s likely some of you out there may have seen this picture before. May even know the identity of one or all of the golfers in view (or even any of the sheep!). Society has, of course (or even on course) dictated a change in the old dress code over the years but the aim of the game remains the same and the intervening century or so hasn’t dressed it up any differently.
If you do know any of the participants or even the young caddie on the left, contact us at the Donegal Daily (info@donegaldaily.com) and share the names.
We’ll even take the result if you have it!
MESSI BUSINESS
Well, that’s Arsalona almost gone from the Champions League for another year but a spirited performance it must be conceded against the Spanish giants last night and a couple of glorious chances to take a goal or two to the Nou Camp gone a-begging.
Still, it could be worse. They could be in the Europa League.
ELECTION MESSAGE
And finally, to those five successful election candidates who will be representing the new Donegal constituency in the Dail, don’t forget the benefits of sport and sporting facilities when you’re arguing the toss for your home county. At the very least make that one of your goals and you’ll be guaranteed the votes of present and future generations.
And if you happen to come into possession of tickets for France 2016 and the Rio Olympics, as you political heads occasionally appear to do for these big sporting events, post them here in a plain brown envelope and I’ll see they get to a good home. Coincidentally the one I’m currently residing in…
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