Shamrocks News

Shield final is assured

Dave O'Malley best on field against Souths on Sunday 14 April 2003 � The Shamrocks Gaelic Football Club is assured of playing in its fifth senior mens Brisbane Shield final in six years after beating Souths at Willawong over the weekend.

The 15-point win 5-13-28 to 2-7-13 by Brisbane�s western suburbs team leaves Shamrocks as the only undefeated team in the competition, with their Shield final opponent to be either East Celts or Souths.

The 2003 final holds special significance because it is scheduled to be the first ever Queensland Gaelic football match under lights on Friday 6th June.

Shamrocks have won five senior mens Brisbane Shields since inception of the Shield in 1988 � more than any other team � and in 1999 became the only club to win the Shield in all three grades in the same year.

Midfielder Dave O�Malley (pictured) led the Shamrocks against Souths over the weekend to be best on field, followed by Scott Ingram and Seamus O�Rourke.

O�Rourke scored 1 goal and 1 point, with Harvey Evans kicking 2-0, Martin Henry 1-4, and Travis Bassett 1-3.

Evans had earlier been the best player for Shamrocks reserves, scoring 1-1 as Shamrocks lost a good match 2-3-9 to John Mitchels 4-2-14. He was well supported by James Marshall and Tim Warhurst.

In the ladies match, Joann O�Neill scored a goal for Shamrocks in the 1-0-3 to 8-16-40 loss to Harps who are the only unbeaten team in the ladies competition.

Kelly Thompson, Patty Preece, Renee Moynihan and Tammy Wawrzyniak were the best players for the young Shamrocks team.

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Previous Brisbane Shield winners

Shamrocks avenge Sarsfields

Ladies coach Glenn Carpenter was scratching his head before coming up with this week's big win 7 April 2003 � Shamrocks avenged losses to the Sarsfields club late last year with two high-octane wins in Queensland Gaelic Football�s Brisbane Shield at Willawong over the weekend.

The mens senior team was bundled out of the Championship semi finals by Sarsfields last year, and the ladies team suffered their only loss ever to Sarsfields last year, but that was all forgotten with wins to both Shamrocks teams on Sunday.

Coach Glenn Carpenter (pictured) � boasting a squad bursting at the seams with rookie high school players in a rebuilding year � watched his ladies team beat Sarsfields 4-7-19 to 2-1-7.

The previous week he was scratching his head after a big loss, but the weekend�s first win of the season was an outstanding turnaround led by Bronwyn Bassett, Renee Moynihan and Kelly on debut.

In the senior mens match, Shamrocks enjoyed teamwork across the field to beat Sarsfields 3-11-20 to 0-4-4.

�It was a magnificent all round team performance, a great running and passing game, with excellent support from players all over the field,� corner back Dave Duguid said after the win.

Best for Shamrocks were Brad Kennedy at midfield, along with Brendan Scandrett and Duguid at corner backs.

Kennedy led all scorers with 1-5 from midfield, supported by Martin Henry 1-3, and Travis Bassett 1-2.

In the mens reserve game, Shamrocks had more scoring shots, more scoring opportunities, but were granted fewer points on the scoreboard as they unluckily lost to East Celts 0-6-6 to 2-3-9.

Best were Stuart Meiklejohn who also led the scoring with 0-3, Brendan Scandrett and Mick Joyce who both also contributed a point each. Mick was encouraged by his mother, who had flown up from South Australia to see the game.

New record as Shamrocks goes global

Record month for the world's first Australian Gaelic football website 4 April 2003 � Brisbane�s western suburbs Shamrocks club continues to grow on the global stage, with its website smashing a two-year-old record with over a thousand individual visitors last month alone.

The world�s first website for an Australian Gaelic football club - founded five years ago - received 1,082 unique hits in March.

Popularity of the Shamrocks continues to grow, with the new record beating by almost 40% the previous mark of 789 set in March 2001, 788 in March 2002, and 787 in September 2002.

The new top-score comes after consecutive single-day records of 74 hits in mid-March, and 102 the very next day, and a weekly record 302 unique visitors in one March week followed by 300 in the next week.

Visitors are clearly browsing the web looking for the Shamrocks club, with over 67% of all visitors specifying Shamrocks as their key word search.

The world�s biggest search engine is also the world�s biggest referrer for Shamrocks with 84% coming from google.com

This record-breaking news comes just days after the Shamrocks senior mens team started the Brisbane Shield competition in great fashion by beating John Mitchels � the defending champions in every available trophy � for the first time in two years.