Elite Texel Hogget Secures Antrim Shows Sheep Inter Breed Title
Gault told Agriland: 'She had previously won Ballymoney's sheep inter-breed title at the beginning of the summer.
'The plan is to breed from here next year.'
Dye Clark, from Lanark in Scotland, judged the sheep classes at Antrim Show 2025. He said that his champion had all the attributes of the Texel breed.
Clark added: 'The standard of all the sheep taking part in the show was outstanding.'
Antrim Show traditionally hosts the final of the Northern Ireland Shows Association (NISA) Dairy Cow of the Year Championship.
The event represents a unique opportunity to profile the performance of Northern Ireland's best dairy cows during the mid-summer period.
This year's championship has surpassed itself with regard to the quality of the cows taking part.
But at the end of the day, it was up to the judge – Canadian native and dairy classifier of note, Lynden Bustard - to tap out his champion.
He chose Potterswalls Bontima Dawn, the elite Jersey cow owned and bred by the Fleming family from Seaforde in Co. Down.
The judge characterised his champion as a truly elite Jersey cow.
'It was hard to fault her at all,' he added.
'Adding to her attraction is the fact that she has calved five times. So it's a case of combining fertility with production capacity and true style.'
'The overall quality of the cows taking part in the championship class was extremely high with any of the cows having the potential to peform well in any dairy class held throughout the UK and beyond."
The dairy inter-breed reserve champion at Antrim Show 2025
Meanwhile, the standard of competition in the beef rings at Antrim Show 2025 was equally keen, with a large entry of cattle scheduled for all events.
The beef inter-breed championship was won by the tremendous Limousin cow Deerpark Shakira entered the show ring with her bull calf at foot. She was bred and exhibited by the Mulholland family from Co. Antrim.
Antrim was the latest in a series of inter-breed titles won by the young cow during 2025.
Judge Cyril Millar commented: 'There was a tremendous entry of cattle entered for all the classes at Antrim this year.
'The winning cow had real show presence. And the fact that she had the calf with her added to the impact.'
The Mulholland family is confirming that Shakira will be retired from the show circuit at the end of the 2025 season.
After that, anyone wishing to view the cow can do so on-farm. She will be maintained at the very heart of the Mulhollands' herd breeding plans for the future.
Ballinalare Farm Nikita with winning connections at Antrim Show 2025
But the winning of the beef inter-breed championship at Antrim turned out to be a very close run thing.
Cyril Millar admitted that the Simmental champion and inter-breed reserve is another young cow with a tremendous breeding future.
Ballinalare Farm Nikita entered the show ring with her twin calves at foot. Bred and exhibited by the Wilson family from outside Newry, she too looked tremendous throughout the day.
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Extra.ie
14 hours ago
- Extra.ie
Neil McManus shares thoughts on Cork's half-time debacle
The second-half of this year's All-Ireland hurling final will forever live in the heads of Cork players and fans as they wonder how did it all go so wrong. The Rebels were leading Tipperary by 1-16 to 0-13 when half-time rolled around but Pat Ryan's side endured a shocking second-half where they managed to only score two points and fell to a 3-27 to 1-18 defeat. Nobody expected the second-half to be so poor from Cork and many have speculated since what happened at the break that tore the side up completely. Neil McManus at the Marie Keating Foundation event. Pic: Andres Poveda While appearing at the Marie Keating Foundation Celebrity Golf Classic on Thursday, former Antrim hurler and television pundit Neil McManus shared his thoughts on Cork's mindset leaving the dressing room and how it all went so downhill. He said: 'It's really hard to know. What I can say from looking in from the outside, whenever you're positioned right on the pitch doing the punditry, you really get a feel for the physicality. 'You might not be able to have the aerial view which allows you to unpick the game tactically, but from the physicality point of view, it was all coming from Tipperary. Tipp ran riot in the second-half. Pic: Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile 'They were winning the physical stakes. They were so aggressive and they wore Cork down. 'My question would be did Cork concentrate a bit too much on the tie? 'Rather than thinking 'we have to win the battle here before this game of hurling even breaks out'. Cork players huddle before the GAA Hurling All-Ireland Senior Championship final match between Cork and Tipperary. Pic: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile 'You felt for them because not only myself but every paper, every TV station that I watched or read had backed Cork because they had been the best team in Ireland up until that point. 'But you only get crowned as being the best in Ireland if you win that game and you can say it's the best ambush ever but Tipperary are All-Ireland champions and that'll be stinging with Cork now.' It was the first time the sides had met in the final and Cork will not want to relive it. In the first-half, it had been a pretty even battle, the difference being Tipperary's nine wides to Cork's five. However, the second half was just astonishingly one-way traffic. Tipperary dominated possession, hitting 1-05 before Cork managed a point and another 2-05 before they got their second, and last score of the game, in the 66th minute. Rebels star Eoin Downey was also shown a second yellow card for fouling John McGrath with 15 minutes left, which only made matters worse. Although on the other side of the country, McManus went on to share some hope for the future of Antrim hurling. He remarked that their under-19 and 20 sides are looking 'very strong' but a problem still exists with the minor and under-16 sides that lack the strength needed to compete with the big guns. Antrim were relegated from the Leinster Senior Hurling Championship this year after a poor season. McManus is hoping that with enough young stars coming through the ranks, they will be able to rise back up as quick as they possibly can.
The 42
a day ago
- The 42
'I found it made me almost miserable at times' - Players and managers embrace new Gaelic football rules
IF THERE WASN'T so much God-damned Catholic guilt in the GAA about scoring tallies, celebrating scores, recognising scoring achievements (witness the long-promised and entirely under-delivered statistical bank that has been on the way for years), then Luke Loughlin would be shining his shoes and airing out his tux for an individual award in the coming months. The Westmeath man has a unique distinction. In league and championship action this year, the Downs forward clipped over 24 efforts outside the scoring arc. In the absence of any official recognition, The 42 bravely steps in to crown him the '2024 King of the Orange Flag.' Probably not a title that might travel well north of the border. And he'll have to come to the office for a picture, some lukewarm coffee and awkward, interrupted conversation. We'll sort him out with a plaque. Maybe. Settle down Clifford, you'll get your turn. The standout game for him and for the new rules came in the Tailteann Cup when they played Antrim in Mullingar. He scored an astonishing 1-17; his goal coming from the penalty spot, no fewer than five two-pointers and three of those coming from open play. Towards the end they had a free from around 60 metres. He thumped it over and there was even time for a late 'hooter-beater'. His personal tally would have been enough to draw the game alone. 📊 1-17!?!? 5 two-pointers. 3 from play. Luke Loughlin put on a scoring masterclass as @westmeath_gaa powered past Antrim in the Tailteann Cup. Ridiculous numbers! 🔥Witness the evidence below⏯️ — The GAA (@officialgaa) May 13, 2025 Always a supreme two-footed footballer, Loughlin has spent his career frustrated by defensive systems. So much so that he sat down with county hurling manager Seoirse Bulfin last winter to explore a switch of codes. By the end of his club hurling season with Clonkill, he felt he was on a par with most hurlers in the county. 'I always hemmed and hawed about playing hurling,' he says. But the year I had, I felt I needed a change. The football was making me miserable. You were giving so much time and it was just not working out. 'That was a major factor; not playing well, not winning, especially with Westmeath, we were so close in so many games and I felt I needed something different.' He continues: 'When you spend so much time doing something and it is not going well, it affects other areas of your life. I found it made me almost miserable at times. I was fed up, basically and then it was seeping into every part of my life and I felt I needed a change, basically. 'I decided that I was going to be 30 and if I had any chance of doing this, it would be while I was still relatively able to run fast to give myself any chance.' Two things changed his mind. He had a fine club football championship with the Downs, that ended with a penalty shootout defeat to St Loman's after a replay. And then incoming county football manager Dermot McCabe called to his house and sold him his vision and his backroom team including Mark McHugh. And the new rules, of course. Loughlin pushed back a little and mentioned he wouldn't be around for the first session as he had a Hyrox event. McCabe said he would see him at the next session after that. And the reports from the first session from his county teammates was that they had never trained as hard, which was sweet music to Loughlin's ears. 'I remember practising with the arc. We did a drill and had the arc there in The Downs and we were fit, so we were flying playing ball. There was still an uncertainty of the rules and what they were going to be like,' he says. 'But I remember standing just inside it and someone handed me the ball. I thought I was like LeBron James taking a step back and hitting a two pointer. And I missed it!' They met Louth in the league opener and a fisted goal by Sean Reynolds finished a smash and grab for the Wee County. That pattern soon became familiar to Westmeath as they managed just one point from seven games despite being close in all of them. Even at that, Loughlin finished that game with 0-12 to his name. Two two-pointers from play, one from a free, three frees and three from play was a sparkling afternoon's personal effort. When he considered it, he played all of the championship the previous year and had a total of 0-11 for his efforts. 'I wasn't thinking this was going to happen every week,' he says. Advertisement 'Then the next game we played Monaghan, they were obviously favourites but I ended up getting 10 in that game. I thought, 'Jeez, there's something in this…' 'The space, the chances, the two-point frees, I started to do a lot of work on the two-point frees as I knew I was going to get a lot of those chances in games and they could affect us coming down the stretch, as the ball was getting brought forward 50 metres. 'The third game against Cork, I just scored one point. It was one of those games, I had loads of chances but even looking back I had an off-game. But the space, the ability to kick the ball in… Give it to the shooter: Luke Loughlin. Leah Scholes / INPHO Leah Scholes / INPHO / INPHO 'What I found was, even when there was a slow attack, if I looped around, you were going to get a one on one somewhere. It was like playing as a forward in hurling. If you lose a ball, you know you are going to get another ball in two minutes. And that's the way I looked at football now. You were always going to get another chance.' Asked to rate his enjoyment of Gaelic football now on a scale of one to ten, he doesn't hesitate. From feeling miserable about it in last year's close-season, he puts it at a ten. Sure, you might still find the odd grumble here and there and some of the 'rule enhancements' from the Football Review Committee required finessing as the year went on. But essentially, the changes to date have worked. There is more room for the expressive players to do their thing. Crowds are more engaged. Interest is up. Some county managers have made telling comments. Jim McGuinness wasn't wrong when he pushed for more substitutes to be allowed in games. But after the All-Ireland final he made a startling admission that, 'The control is gone.' It makes it, well, more of a 'game' in the truest sense. The incoming Sligo joint-manager, Eamonn O'Hara, has a panoramic view of it. Over the last few years, he has been hoovering up county championships with his home club Tourlestrane before going back-to-back in Leitrim with Mohill. Then, he's been covering games as a pundit for RTÉ and now he faces into coaching a new game with his managerial partner, Dessie Sloyan. He feels brand new. Eamonn O'Hara. Bryan Keane / INPHO Bryan Keane / INPHO / INPHO 'Ah Jesus, yeah. It's class, it's class,' he says. 'The year just gone, there's some naivety to it in some cases, but it has been class. 'The big midfield battle is back. The big midfielder himself is key. The break ball expert, the Paul Galvin as I call it, is important.' What he says next though, is an insight into the challenging art of coaching for managers now that the rule enhancements have bedded in. 'It's funny, I was chatting a lad, he is 21 and we were talking about the midfield and foraging for ball and he was completely lost in what I was saying,' O'Hara explains. 'They have been coached and played and have no idea what some of this stuff, about metrics for breaking ball. They haven't had to do that. 'They will realise that breaking ball is an art, it's timing, watching the flight of the kickout, the guys going up and the timing to go. 'I'm excited about all of that.' It finally happened for Lee Keegan a few weeks back. The man who made his name as an attacking half-back for Mayo in their glorious rampage through a decade of championship campaigns was playing a game for Westport in the Mayo leagues when a huge chunk of turf opened up for him. He straightened his shoulders up, dropped the ball and let fly. The umpires raised an orange flag for a two-pointer. The new rules lifted his heart. 'I have to say though, scoring it was an absolutely brilliant feeling. I felt like a kid again, when you do something new,' he says. 'I felt like it was a brand-new thing, 'Do we celebrate this, or just play on or what?'' Caught up in his reverie, he danced back to his position still celebrating internally. His marker and former county team mate Stephen Coen smiled and snapped him out of it by remarking, 'You know, the kickout is coming.' And Keegan's experience is one that you can find wherever you go now. 'I am actually really enjoying it. I am quite old school, I love one-on-one combat, me versus your guy and whoever comes out is the better man on the day,' says Keegan. 'For me, I think we have that back a bit. I found I was losing my grip on how to defend. I think defenders forget how to defend to some extent because you always had that wall in front of you. Lee Keegan in action for Westport. Evan Logan / INPHO Evan Logan / INPHO / INPHO 'Nobody was doing a man-marking job and if you did, you had three men helping you. I find now, particularly with the club game, it is man-on-man, you have to defend. 'But also, what I like about it is that it has given our attacking guys a bit more excitement. They get more ball, quicker ball. There are times to slow it down, but it has opened up a new avenue. I see a lot of guys smiling, playing the game.' Mayo and Keegan are an interesting case study. For years, their All-Ireland clashes against Dublin were often the saviour of several drab championships, endured rather than enjoyed. The reason for that, is Mayo would engage Dublin in a man-to-man contest rather than retreat into zonal marking. Some cruel observers saw this as their innocence and/or tactical naivety. It was never that simple though. Mayo watched Dublin dismantle defensive system with their loop-arounds and back-door cuts. They could have just joined the queue. The easy response to that was that it only got the job done once, in the 2021 All-Ireland semi-final. You can argue that if you like, but nobody else got as close to Dublin when they broke all records. 'We felt we had players who could go toe to toe for long enough with them,' says Keegan. 'That's for me, how you earn your bread and butter. If you are marking one of the best forwards in Croke Park, in the most unforgiving places, if you can do that, you are doing your job.' To conclude, we go back to the start when we ask about how uptight GAA culture has historically been about scoring. Up until Joe Brolly, the only acceptable score celebration had been to shuffle back towards your position and await the kickout. Those that broke from the norm, the John Mullane and Eoin Kellys and Owen Mulligans, are celebrated for their difference. In 2025, the most exciting player in Gaelic football decided to Hell with all that. David Clifford was a whirl of fist pumps and warm waving; whipping the crowd into a frenzy like a Revivalist preacher. It all felt that with the rule changes in the season gone by, that the world of GAA could relax. Loosen the belt one notch. Celebrate the sheer full-fat effect of a two-pointer. And now it's the club player's turn. Go on lads. Back yourselves. Check out the latest episode of The42′s GAA Weekly podcast here
The Irish Sun
5 days ago
- The Irish Sun
I captained my county to All-Ireland glory on Sunday – now I'm getting married, GAA ace's dream week
They had to do it the hard way in Croke Park too HAPPY DAYS I captained my county to All-Ireland glory on Sunday – now I'm getting married, GAA ace's dream week AINE Breen's already made one lifelong memory this week having captained Louth to All-Ireland glory - but she now has the small matter of getting married on Friday to immediately focus on. The Wee County skipper laid out how hectic of a seven-day schedule she's in the thick of while reflecting on their win in Sunday's Junior decider. Advertisement She told The Irish Independent of how the entire team were particularly elated at the weekend as they'd come up short in the 2024 decider. She reflected: 'As I mentioned in my speech, it's an honour to play with your county and to represent your county. "But to lift a cup on the Hogan Stand is always a dream of any child or anyone that plays with their county…it's fantastic. 'You talk about the burden of being captain, but I think the management and the players themselves made it so much easier because there are so many leaders on that pitch." Advertisement A points deluge sparked by Katie Flood helped Louth claim a record fourth All-Ireland JFC crown on the day. With the Wee County one point ahead at the interval in the final, Flood added to her 0-3 tally to double her side's lead with a superb strike shortly after the restart. Scores from Breen, Mia Duffy and Lucy White would give Louth a five-point cushion, which Antrim failed to overturn despite three points on the bounce from Ana Mulholland, Theresa Mellon and Maria O'Neill. Louth manager Kevin Larkin later praised his players for recovering from a four-point deficit in the first half to claim the title. Advertisement He said: 'What a group to work with. All of Ireland has seen it there. Penalty, four points down and the girls just kept going, kept going. They're just a brilliant group.' Antrim, also bidding to become the first county to win the TG4 All-Ireland junior title four times, hit the ground running with a third-minute penalty from captain Bronagh Devlin. TJ Reid and wife Niamh de Brun's gorgeous pregnancy reveal Shortly after, Theresa Mellon split the posts for the Ulster side — and even though Louth eventually opened their account through Aoife Russell, a score from Omolara Dahunsi reinforced Antrim's early authority. Dahunsi found her range again in response to back-to-back points from Russell and Ceire Nolan. But it was the Wee County who went into the interval ahead 0-8 to 1-4. Advertisement And Louth's second-half points blitz was enough to secure the crown, with Saffrons boss Chris Scullion lamenting the chances that his side had scorned. He said: 'There was a couple of opportunities presented to ourselves. But I'm not taking anything away from Louth. Louth were brilliant today.' 1 They triumphed over Antrim by 0-13 to 1-08 LOUTH: R Lambe Fagan; R Beirth, E Hand, E Murray; H Lambe Sally, S McLaughlin 0-1, L Byrne; A Breen 0-2, A Halligan; L White 0-1, E Byrne 0-1, S Matthews; A Russell 0-2, K Flood 0-4, C Nolan 0-1. Advertisement Subs: M Duffy 0-1 for S Matthews 42min, L Collins for Russell 56, G McCrave for Lambe Sally 59, Z Sweeney for White 59. ANTRIM: A Devlin; N McIntosh, M Blaney, M Mulholland; S O'Neill, C Brown, C McKenna; A Mulholland 0-1, A Tubridy; T Mellon 0-2, M O'Neill 0-3, 1f, Aoife Kelly; B Devlin 1-0 pen, O Dahunsi 0-2, L Agnew. Subs: A Turley for Tubridy 39min, A Monaghan for Kelly 39, B Nic Cathail for Agnew 47, N Jones for B Devlin 56, Aine Kelly for McKenna 56. Sunday was a bumper triple-header of LGFA finals as Tyrone then pipped Laois in the Intermediate while Dublin cruised to the Senior crown against Meath.
