The West's awake
St Patrick's Day was the clubs' big day out at Croke
Park with the finals of the All-Ireland football and
hurling competitions. In the hurling final the 36,000
crowd saw Birr of Offaly capture the Tommy Moore Cup
when they defeated Sarsfields of Galway by seven
points.
other Galway side in the football final - Corofin -
took on Erin's Isle from Dublin. A five point win for
the westerners sees the trophy go to Connacht for the
first time in the history of the 28-year-old
competition.
How the mighty have fallen
The weekend witnessed the finishing up of the National
League Section tables. The biggest surprise of the
whole campaign was the poor performances of last year's
Ulster champions Cavan (although they went out in a
flurry against Sligo), All-Ireland champions Kerry and
Dublin.
All eyes were on a packed Parnell Park as we had the
unusual spectacle of watching old rivals Dublin and
Kerry battle it out for, above all things, the right to
see who stayed in Division Two of the reorganised
league next season. Kerry, for the first time in the
history of the league will no longer be in Division
One. A lively Dublin performance ensured they clung on
to Division Two status by beating the lads from the
Kingdom 18 points to a goal and three.
The quarter finalists from the sections were Mayo and
Galway in one, Donegal and Derry in B, Offaly and
Monaghan in C and Down and Cork in D. The whole idea of
the `sections' with mixed teams has seemed to work. It
was introduced to provide more of an even palying field
for all counties for the return of the divisional
system. Counties who benefitted from the changes of the
last season were some of the lower divisional sidea:
Offaly, Monaghan and Galway successfully made the jump
to Division One from Division Three through the system.
![[An Phoblacht]](http://republican-news.org/graphics/title_gifs/aprn.gif)