Dunloy, Ballycastle and St Gall’s take the honours in the Joe McKelvey tournament

The O’Donovan Rossa, Joe McKelvey tournament has always been one of the calendar highlights in juvenile hurling.

This year’s tournament provided an opportunity for the Shaws road club on the 100th anniversary year of their founders death to officially name the Joe McKelvey Stand.

With the formalities out of the way and the sun shining the games got started.

Eion Trainor presents the Joe McKelvey Shield to the Dunloy captain after his team’s win over Rossa in the final

Ballycastle who were winners of Section 2 after beating Davitt’s in the final

Competing at u13, 12 teams from across Ulster took to the pitches of Rossa and St Paul’s and battled for every ball.

Working through highly competitive group stages into 3 tiered divisions.

The division 3 final saw St Galls claim the top prize with a win over Bredagh, while in Division 2, Belfast and North Antrim went head to head with Ballycastle claiming the honours over a very competitive Davitts team.

The stakes in Division 1 couldn’t have been higher with the Joe McKelvey trophy on the line.

In the first of 2 highly contested semi finals at Rossa Park, the battle of Belfast saw Rossa edge out long time adversaries St John’s.

St Paul’s and Dunloy offered a mouth watering display worthy of the day with the men in green proving too strong.

Fitting that Rossa should make it to the final, the Belfast boys hunted in packs worked to the end but against tournament favourites and a team to watch in the future the boys from Dunloy proved a step too far and were worthy winners.

A great days hurling by all and already all the talk is of next year’s tournament.