Drum/Clonown/Monksland shine on national stage

The Drum/Clonown/Monksland Under-10 indoor soccer girls’ team recently competed in the Community Games National Finals, where they were narrowly defeated in their final played in Keenagh, Co. Longford.

The DCM girls played a terrific semi-final, winning 3-0 against Monaghan Town. The girls then met Boherlahan-Dualla, Co. Tipperary in the final with the latter just coming out on top.

The team has achieved great success over the last few months, winning Roscommon and Connacht titles and then finishing in the top two teams in Ireland. Well done to all the team and management for an amazing few months putting in the hard work in training to achieve this amazing result.

Meanwhile, the under-13 Drum/Clonown/Monksland Community Games Chess team brought home silver medals last month at the National Finals.

The team is comprised of captain Nikodem Zamiar, Adhiraj Bhushan, Cormac Gallagher, Aaron Sheehy, Fionn Fallon and Eleanor Neary, alongside coaches Paul Coughlan and Niall Gallagher.

This was the first time that Drum/Clonown have had a chess team in the Community Games, with the team only beginning their training in January of this year. They trained every week on Thursdays in Monksland Community Centre.

The team did very well to beat Cavan in the semi-finals before ultimately losing to Cork in the final, finishing runners-up overall.

Kelly Marie Neary of Monksland Town Team called it an “incredible achievement”. She said: “Paula Sheehy raised the idea of a chess team earlier this year and much to her delight, there was enough interest to enter an under-11 and under-13 team in the area.”