TYRONE had every reason to celebrate their narrow win, by just half a goal, all the more so when the final and winning goal was scored in the final minutes of the 6-Goal tournament at Wicklow during the last weekend of July.

The road to the final was far from assured despite the Tyrone team roundly defeating LHK Insurance in the qualifier, Eamonn Laverty and son Daniel along with Johnny Hearne and Facundo Matilla earning six and a half goals on handicap to just two from LHK, the team that, up until the high goal tournament at Wicklow, had laid claim to just about every piece of silver available during this season.

The road to the win became all the more uncertain when Horseware defeated Polo Wicklow in their qualifier on six goals to three and a half, the team under Tom MacGuinness that was due for a win following two previous seasons of sweeping the pitch of every team they met.

Horseware has yet to get out of the box this season, a remarkable change in the team that won both the high and low goal tournament season last year while clearing out all other low goal teams in 2015.

“After a poor start to our polo season we were delighted to win the very competitive 6-Goal Tournament hosted by Polo Wicklow,” said team patron, Eamonn Laverty. “The final score was very close, winning by only half a goal. It was reflective of a keenly contested final against a very strong Horseware team.”

Tyrone was, at a time, the team to beat, and MacGuinness for Horseware never let up on the pressure when he lined out the brothers Michael and James Connolly along with power-hitter Sean Connolly. On paper, his was the stronger team on average at six goals to only four from Tyrone and was already behind before the final opened on the handicap average adjustment of one and a half goals.

Given the admittedly poor season for Tyrone and the four goals given away to Horseware on penalty free hits, the game should have gone to Tom MacGuinness. The man for the Horseware team to beat was obviously James Connolly, who turned in three out of four penalty goals as well as being credited with a field goal, while Michael Connolly contributed one penalty goal.

Polo Wicklow won their 6-Goal subsidiary final, Caroline Keeling, April Kent, Will Clarke and Felipe Kelly earning five and a half goals to a very competent four goals from Colm Kelleher, Siobhan Herbst, David Stone Jr and Francisco ‘Poncho’ Acosta for LHK. Polo Wicklow had lost their qualifier to Horseware while LHK lost to Tyrone.

Cumulative scoring in a round-robin tournament of two days decided the Zero-Goal tournament, Pegus earning 14 goals to win while Rits A followed with 11½, Bunclody with 10, Rocklow eight and a half and Cordoba, eight goals.

The more experienced players in the Challenge Trophy, Paul Monahan and Keelan McCarthy for El Nino, led Anna McCarthy and Elaine Monahan to the win in four chukkas against the Rits B team with Sean Reynolds, Joe O’Connell and Robert Patton guiding Alex and Jennifer Reynolds.

The very low goal tournament has prompted participation among adult entry level and young players, and El Nino won the tournament on 16 goals to 14.5 over two days.