All-Ireland success evades Laois at Wallball Championship finals
Men's Golden Masters Wallball All-Ireland final runner-up Kevin Brennan (Laois) being presented with his medal by GAA Handball President Conor McDonnell
KILGLASS in Roscommon played host to the All-Ireland Wallball Championship finals with Laois represented by two players at these finals.
In the Men’s Golden Masters, Kevin Brennan (Clough-Ballacolla) was expected to challenge strongly for All-Ireland glory having showed superb form in beating a highly skilled opponent in Stuart Heslin of Louth in the Leinster Wallball final.
Úna Brophy (Cullohill) sealed her place in these finals after defeating her sister Aoife in a pulsating Ladies Junior Leinster final.
In the Men’s Golden Masters, Kevin Brennan faced Pat Murphy of Limerick in his All-Ireland semi-final. Kevin played with immense confidence and skill to record a resounding 15-03, 15-03 victory to set up a final against Graham Cadburn of Galway.
The Galway handballer progressed to the final after a three game thriller and a highly competitive All-Ireland Final between two high calibre handballers was expected.
The final certainly lived up to expectation with Kevin winning the opening game 15-3 only for Cadburn to impressively respond and take the second game 10-15.
The tie-breaker saw the Galway handballer make the faster start to build up an early sizeable lead. Brennan showcased his battling qualities and mounted a fightback. Despite making inroads into the deficit, the Clough-Ballacolla handballer had unfortunately left himself with too much work to do with Cadburn holding his nerve to fend off the Laois challenge.
The Galway handballer made a fantastic retrieval to win a breathtaking final rally and claim the decisive ace needed to capture the All-Ireland title on an 11-7 scoreline in the tie-breaker.
Despite this loss, Brennan has had a truly remarkable 2025 with provincial and All-Ireland titles claimed in all three codes of the game (40x20, 60x30, Wallball).
In the Ladies All-Ireland Junior championship, Úna Brophy received a bye to the final after her opponent Caitríona Millane (Clare) had to forfeit the semi-final.
In the final, Brophy faced the highly talented Ava Sweeney of Galway. This was expected to be a tricky encounter for the Laois handballer with Sweeney showing tremendous form in reaching the final.
Unfortunately, from a Laois perspective, the Cullohill handballer wasn’t quite able to reach the levels that she showed in the Leinster final with the Galway handballer dominating both games to record a deserved 15-2, 15-2 victory in the final.
While disappointed to lose, Brophy gained huge experience from her involvement in the final and will no doubt be able to draw upon this experience when she sets about achieving All-Ireland Wallball success in 2026.
