HANNAH Sexton will join the road bowling senior ranks in 2022 with her winning run intact after a two-bowl intermediate county final victory over Ciara Buckley at Templemartin.
There will be expectation after Hannah’s exceptional achievements in underage grades, but with her talents spread over many codes, a chance must be given to consolidate at the much more difficult higher level.
Timoleague teen Hannah was given a good test by her North-East rival Ciara Buckley, also a high achiever in youths grades, and for a while in the early stages, the ascendancy was with the Mallow challenger.
Hannah’s perfectly-executed deliveries around and away from ‘Slynne’s corner’ showed her at her best. The power in her bowling enabled her to get away with a few tight plays subsequently.
Ciara might have taken more than a 30-metre lead as both took a while to get going on the tough, rising surface playing away from the startline at Farranhavane cross. Hannah led with a fine fourth, but it was her seventh and eighth shots that catapulted her into a commanding lead that eventually transferred to a bowl advantage after ten.
Ciara did well to hold off that deficit beating big shots to ‘O’Riordan’s’. Hannah put the seal on her victory with a sweeping cast around the ‘school-house cross’. Already the national U18 winner, she now goes in search of an All-Ireland double when she takes on Ulster champion Sinead Kiernan in two weeks’ time at Ballyvourney. Michael Brennan presented the 2020 intermediate champion with the John Harrington Perpetual Cup.
