The Irish Sports Year in Review
2015 – The sporting year saw a number of milestones reached and also saw some very special moments including Ireland reaching Euro 2016 after a play off win over Bosnia and Herzegovina , In GAA , Dublin and Kilkenny won the Senior Hurling and Senior Football titles. Cork did the double in women’s football and camogie with both All Ireland titles heading for Leeside this year.
In Rugby, while the World Cup took up most people’s minds, there was a special few days last March when both the Men’s squad and Women’s squad went after both Six Nations Crown’s. On the Saturday Paul O Connell and his men went into battle needing to score a big victory to stand any chance of winning the Six Nations for the 2nd time in three years, although both England and Wales racked up plenty of tries they didn’t do enough to deny Ireland a 2nd title. In Clyde FC the following day the Irish women’s team led by Niamh Briggs finished off the unique double with a 73-3 win over Scotland.
In Boxing we had a World Champion crowned as Andy Lee won the WBO middleweight Title but at the tail end of 2015 he lost the WBO middleweight title to Billy Joe Saunders. Michael Conlon was crowned a European and World Champion in 2015. He heads in 2016 with high hopes of Olympic gold in Rio. Katie Taylor also won gold at the first ever European Games beating Estelle Mosely of France in the final.
In 2015 Racing saw the end of Tony Mc Coy’s career , he won 20 consecutive Jump Jockey Championships. He won well over 4,000 races. It was a career that saw him involved with some successful owners and trainers like Nicky Henderson and owners JP Mc Manus.
The Premier League saw Chelsea were crowned the 2014/2015 Champions , Arsenal were FA Cup winners for the second straight season. On the home front Dundalk were Airtricity League winners with St Pats and Dundalk winning the two FAI Cups that were on offer. The year will of course be remembered for Ireland securing there place at Euro 2016 with a memorable 1-0 win over Germany and also a hard fought play off win over Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In Golf, Shane Lowery won the WGC Bridgestone Invitational, Rory Mc Illroy also found some form in 2015 while Darren Clarke was named 2016 Ryder Cup Captain.
They are some of my highlights of the 2015 sporting year , a special mention has to go to the supporters that made the World Cup so special. The fans that make the GAA championships so special year after year must also get a mention. I realise I may be leaving out some important moments but these are just a small selection of key moments this year. Here’s hoping 2016 will be as successful with Ireland involved in the Six Nations, The Republic Of Ireland and Northern Ireland involved at Euro 2016 and the Olympics in Rio. 2015 was good but I just have a funny feeling that 2016 will be something special for Irish sport.
By
Cian Mc Gibney
23/12/2015
