FANTASTIC NEWS FROM THE ALGARVE

When was the last time an Irish team beat a team from France, Germany and Sweden?

When was the last time an Irish team beat all three in one day?

Well it happened at the Portugese Youth Open Championships!

Paul McCreery, Sam Hanley and Ashley Robinson beat France B 3-2 and European Champions Germany A, 3-0, in the Group stages.
Paul won a thrilling 5-setter against Tristan Florre, while in the doubles Paul and Sam pulled off another 5 set victory to clinch the victory against France.
Similarly against Germany Paul won in 5 sets against Yannick Dohrmnann and they won the doubles 11-6 in the fifth set to take another major scalp.

Their results in the group games saw them playing for positions 1 to 7. In their first match here they had a fantastic 3-2 victory over Sweden, who had already beaten England A in the Group stage.
They won the first two games here but lost the doubles 10-12 in the fifth set. Then Sam lost to Adam Andersson 5-11 in the fifth set to bring it to the deciding match. Paul won this 3-1 (12-10 in the fourth set) to clinch a place in the top four.

They were beaten 0-3 by, the eventual winners, a very strong Belgium A side in the semifinals. They did succeed in taking two sets however, with Sam winning his set 19-17.

They lost the 3rd/4th playoff to Croatia 0-3 to finish in an incredible 4th place overall. Sam lost the first match here 7-11 in the fifth set against Miho Simovoc, while Paul lost to Filip Cipin 10-12, 7-11, 13-15. Cipin later finished 2nd overall in the Singles event.

To put this in perspective:
England A finished in 12th place with Liam Pitchford (English Ranked No. 2) and Sean Cullen (English No. 4) on the team.
England B finished in 16th place, with Daniel Lowe(English No. 3) and Zak Zilensnik (English No. 6 and No. 1 Under 13)on the team.
Scotlands team of Sean Doherty and Calum Main finished in 21st place.

Well done to the players and Jing Yi Gao, NPC on a brilliant performance.

This result sends out a very important message to future Irish teams that we can actually win against the top performing countries.

Sports Award Scheme by Fingal Independent/Drogheda Independent Recognises ALSAA Players Achievements

Fingal Independent/ Drogheda Independent host a Sports Award scheme every year sponsored by the Clarion Hotel, Dublin Airport. Each month from January onwards local clubs are invited to submit nominees for the monthly Sport Star award selected by the Editor.

All monthly winners were invited to the black-tie Annual Award Night held on the 12^th January 2008 in the Clarion Hotel. This was hosted by Michael Lyster from RTE, where the Sport Star of the Year was announced. As well as the monthly winners the paper nominates two wild card entrants. This year Sara Dolan, ALSAA table tennis player, was selected along with Tony Grant, captain of Eircom League Champion’s Drogheda United, thus illustrating the high standard of competition. There was also two World Champions and two members of the Irish Cricket team who played in the World Cup.

Fellow ALSAA member Sam Hanley had been a monthly winner in 2006, while Sam Logue unfortunately missed out on a monthly nomination in November 2007.

Sara's citation read “in recognition of her achievements in table tennis in 2007, Irish Number 1 U14, beating the Dutch No 2 In Hasselt Cup and current Irish No 2 U17."

The overall winner was 4 times World Judo Champion Jack Dennis.

You can do it - table tennis