7 days ago
Different ball game but road bowling a family affair for Armagh netminder Ethan Rafferty
Ethan Rafferty achieved a unique addition to his All-Ireland football medal won last year when claiming the All-Ireland senior road bowling crown over the weekend.
The latter success, though, is no way unique to his family. Sunday's win merely lifts him onto the bottom step of a family ladder steeped in road bowling silverware.
After victory on the west Cork roads around Castletownkenneigh, there's little doubt that road bowling must carry a significant degree of importance to him if he is making the time to operate to such a high level in tandem with his existence within the consuming inter-county sphere.
'It's real family-oriented for myself,' he says, before dropping in the mightily impressive stat that his win keeps the senior men's title in the family for a fourth successive year.
'My grandfather, Aidan Toal, was big into it and that filtered down. His son, Michael Toal, has ten All-Ireland titles, and then there's all the cousins and we would've played together growing up.
'I won it this year, my younger brother Colm won the Senior All-Ireland last year, and then the two years before that was a first cousin of ours, Thomas Mackle, so it's obviously close to your heart because it's your family. My auntie Dervla [Toal], she's a reigning All-Ireland Ladies champion too, so I would be rightfully down the pecking order with regards to All-Irelands in the family.
THROUGH THE MILLING CROWDS: Armagh's Ethan Rafferty - better known as the county's No 1 - contesting (and winning) the All-Ireland Senior Road Bowling Championships at Castletownkenneigh in Co Cork. This decisive moment, brilliantly captured by Greta Cormican, is his throw from 'The Black Gate' to 'Fehilly's Lane' and was critical in ensuring Rafferty went out to Forshin's Cross in one more. That and his following throw made it virtually impossible for final opponent Arthur McDonagh to mount a successful comeback. Pic: Greta Cormican
'All my uncles, aunties, mum and dad, and all came down to the score on Sunday, it means a lot, so you try and find time for it the best you can, you get out for 10 or 15 minutes practice, and that's how you keep tipping at it.'
The journey down from Armagh was made on Saturday with only one stop, that to take in Tyrone and the Orchard County's quarter-final conquerors Kerry.
The two-mile course was walked that evening to have its curvature sampled and studied, Ethan and his dad enjoying the road to themselves in sharp contrast to the throngs that packed the following day.
'It was a civil enough score Sunday, but the crowds can be heated because you'd have fellas there wagering a lot on it, so they're obviously looking to get the win.
'With the large crowd, it can be hard to navigate the road and ask them to get out of the way, but before each shot they are good, if you want to look up the left-hand side of the road, they'll clear that side.
'I have an uncle, a cousin, and a friend in my camp so to speak, so I would leave it up to them, they can read the road a bit better than I would. You're sort of going off what they are telling you.'
Two weeks after Kerry dismantled his kickout and dethroned Armagh in the process, Sunday was a timely triumph.
'With the football going on, I wasn't sure if I was going to get playing the bullets at all this year. Obviously the season ended prematurely for us, and so this was something I could put my head into and focus on after the football.
'I didn't expect to be competing for the senior All-Ireland title this year, after only winning the intermediate last year, but I gave it my best and thankfully it worked out.'
