Throughout the year we have had a huge input from some schools in relation to “Girls in Sport” and the IOHA has backed this up with coaching and refereeing.

Every first Wednesday of every month saw a host of schools take part in “Glitz Blitzes”, a moniker given by the girls themselves and many schools sent players even though they did not have full teams themselves.

IOHA also ran for CDVEC a one day tournament which involved two girl’s school teams.

It is a pity that a sport that so favourably suits young women is not being taken up, but many girls have made it their number 1 sport and train hard and play hard in competition.

Schools from Terenure, Tallaght, Firhouse and Meath all apologised for not being able to make it, but the four teams that did certainly made up for that with some exceptional matches.

Another Blitz for girls (non-competitive friendly) involving both Meath teams has been organised for next week.

Also a revival of Tallaght Tournament is on the cards for 8 school teams in the Tallaght area.

However today was about St. Paul’s (3 times all-Ireland Champions in the past 3 years) Ballinteer Community School and Colaiste de hIde (2 teams)

A round robin system was played with the top two teams playing a final and the bottom two playing for the bronze medal match.

Results

3^rd/4^th Playoff

Colaiste de hIde (B)    1 – 6    Ballinteer CS

Final

St. Paul’s               8 – 4         Colaiste de hIde

The final and the round robin matches between Colaiste de hIde and St. Paul’s were the best two matches of the day and the girls from the all-Irish school showed how far they have come in a very short space of time having just begun handball last year. The St. Paul’s girls were very lucky to beat them first time around and although they were cruising the second time 5 – 0 up, they started to lose control and if the game had gone for another 5 minutes we might have had a different champion.