Great Win for St. Mary's

County Tipperary Minor A Hurling Final:

St. Mary's (Clonmel); 2-11 Kildangan 0-13

Today's county minor hurling victory for St. Mary's hurling club, Clonmel — whose sister football club is Clonmel Commercials — gives a great boost to hurling in Clonmel and South Tipperary. Their near neighbours, Moyle Rovers — a traditional football club — also won county hurling titles in Minor A and Under-21 B grades last year which is evidence that Clonmel is establishing a strong base for Hurling as well as Gaelic Football.

St. Mary's was established in 1929 to promote hurling in Clonmel — the Gaelic football club in the town at the time was Clonmel Shamrocks. St. Mary's have won a surfeit of South Tipperary titles over the years but prior to today, the only county title came in 1975 when they beat Clonmore in the Junior A final which was then the next grade to Senior. They have supplied a number of All-Ireland winning players to Tipperary minor and under twenty one teams. Notable players in the early years of the club were Tony Neylon from Clare and Bob McGann of Tipperary football and Galway hurling fame. In the forties, Theo English, who went on to win five senior and one junior All-Ireland hurling medals with Tipperary, played at under age level with St. Mary's. Ditto Mick Kennedy who, having played minor hurling and all grades of football with Tipperary, went on to play senior hurling with Dublin and Leinster with whom he won a Railway Cup medal in 1962. Another former servant of St. Mary's, Matt Ruth, went on to win two senior All-Ireland medals with his native Kilkenny.

Today's final was played at the Drom-Inch GAA grounds at The Ragg.