McAuley Cup – Senior Hurling – Friday 21st July @ 7-30
Loughgiel Shamrocks will take on Kevin Lynch’s Dungiven in the final of the 2013 McAuley Cup tournament at Armoy on Friday evening at 7-30.
This will be the first time the tournament has been played since 2019, mainly because of the Covid epidemic, and it is great to see it back. Friday evening’s final will see the same two team meet as did battle in that 2019 decider. The Sharmrocks won that day, but there have been a good few changes on both side in the four years since they last met.
The fact that both teams are from different counties is a big plus for this years’ final, for had it been two Antrim teams, or indeed two Derry teams, meeting each other neither would have been too keen to show their hand against a team they might well be meeting in the championship in a couple of weeks’ time. Both Loughgiel’s manager Hugh McCann and his Dungiven counterpart Kevin Himphy will see this a really good preparation for the campaigns that lie ahead.
The competition was started some years ago in memory of Paddy McAuley who was the man who restarted hurling in the glen in 1968. There have been a few teams have started and finished over the years in Armoy but the Glen Rovers club was founded in 1956, the name no doubt being a nod to the Cork legend Christy Ring who played his club hurling for the club of the same name in Cork city. Sadly it didn’t last too long back then but when Paddy McAuley got it up and running again in ’68 it has survived to the present day.
Let’s hope there are many more years to come.
