The 60th Brewster Cup Tournament was played last Sunday in Killarney (6th March) with three counties, Cork, Kerry and Waterford, competing for the trophy. It was decided to adopt a system that would allow all three counties to play each other at the same time rather than adopting a round robin format. This was done to help to ensure that none of the competing counties would have an early advantage.
From early on it became apparent that this tournament was going to go down to the wire with a number of the early games going to three sets with wins being shared between the counties. Of these, Sean Murphy and Billy Lacey (Kerry) had a fine win against David O’ Driscoll and Conor Leahy (Cork) in 1st mens doubles 23-21 in the 3rd set . On court at the same time as this doubles match was being played the mens singles match between Eoin Walsh (Waterford) and Neil Moynihan (Cork) was heading to its conclusion, the result eventually going in Waterfords favor 24-22 in the 3rd set. Of the other early match ups Trish Doyle and Patricia Herlihy (Cork) narrowly beat Gemma Tobin and Aoife Maher (Waterford) 21-16, again in the 3rd set.
Coming into the final round of games the result was still in the balance with both Kerry and Cork having a slight edge over Waterford. Of these, Patricia Herlihy and Terence Rumley (Cork) had a narrow win against Peggy Horan and Sean Murphy (Kerry) in 3rd mixed, eventually coming through 21-15 in the 3rd set. Two other mixed doubles were on court while this game was being played; Sinead Galvin and Michael Crossan (Kerry) came through 2nd mixed against Emer O’ Keeffe and David O’ Driscoll (Cork) and when Trish Doyle and Neill Moynihan (Cork) came through a tough encounter in 1st mixed against Helen Twomey and Billy Lacey the calculators had to come out….
The final result going in favor of a worthy Cork team on a sets count back.
Final score: Cork 10 points (24 sets), Kerry 10 points (22 sets), Waterford 7 points.
While all would agree that the tournament was a great success and a very high standard of badminton was on show for all who watched on, it is hoped to have more counties involved in the coming years..