Ulster Minor Hurling Championship
Casement Park, Belfast
Admission: £13.00
Programme: £2.00
Attendance: 1000 (estimated)
Match Rating: 4
After a tour of Croke Park last summer whetted my appetite for Gaelic Games, and catching a few London hurling games consolidated my interest, I finally decided to watch a relatively high profile game in Ireland, to take in the Ulster Hurling Championship Finals at Casement Park, Belfast. A double-header was on offer, with the Ulster Minor Hurling Championship Final to be played before the main event of the Ulster Senior Hurling Championship Final.
It’s fair to say that hurling is not a very popular sport in Northern Ireland, and the standard of play is by far inferior to that in the south of the Republic of Ireland, with Northern Ireland being much more of a hotbed for Gaelic Football. The competitiveness of the game is also not helped in Ulster with one county, Antrim (the only county in Ulster where hurling is more dominant than Gaelic Football) being a class apart above the other counties.
Casement Park is the premier venue in Belfast for Gaelic Sports, and is located about a 20 minute walk from Balmoral or Finaghy train stations on the Belfast-Portadown line, or 3 miles south-west of Belfast city centre. It has a large of capacity of 32.600, although most of the pitch is surrounded by uncovered terracing, with just a fairly small and old-fashioned stand certainly in need of some renovation providing covered seating, with uncovered seating available in front of the stand. Almost all of the meagre crowd remained within the stand for today’s games. An excellent glossy programme was on sale, which provided ample information regarding the four teams in action today, how they got to the finals and various other interesting articles.
The first game was the Ulster Minor Hurling Championship, which is an under 18 competition. Antrim were expected to win this game convincingly (as they are in any competition in Ulster), having won the competition for the last eight years running and sixteen times in the last eighteen years. It was somewhat of a surprise that Armagh had made it to the finals, traditionally one of the weaker hurling counties who had not reached an Ulster Minor final since 1982, and had only reached the Senior final once, in 1946, however Armagh did managed to beat Antrim in the league earlier in the year.
The game started off according to the script, with Antrim racing into a four point lead with 15 minutes on the clock and with Armagh struggling to fashion any goalscoring opportunities. However, Armagh bounced back to level the game with 21 minutes gone. The game was open for the rest of the first half, but Antrim managed to open up a 3 point lead by half time, with a 0-10 to 0-7 scoreline. Armagh continued with their impressive play after half time to level the scores within ten minutes if the restart, and a major shock looked a distinct possibility. However, Armagh seemed to fade as they failed to add to their tally and Antrim eventually ran out fairly comfortable 2-19 to 0-10 winners.
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