The Club Lotto! The club lotto draw took place on Monday night in the Emmet Centre for a jackpot of €9,100. The numbers drawn were 17,22, 27 and 28; there was no matching numbers. The “lucky dip” saw Gordon Finnegan get €50 while Paddy Hand and Brian Hanratty got €20 each. The €10 went to Gary McEneaney. That leaves next week’s jackpot at a whooping €9,200. Just a few words on the lotto; it is the “bread and butter” lifeline of the Emmets club and has been over a number of years.  It helps to plan the budgeting for the year ahead as well as providing steady revenue on a regular basis throughout the year; so it was disappointing to hear the treasurer report at our AGM that the revenue was down by 20% on the previous year. There are three ways of doing the lotto (a) buy weekly (b) subscribe yearly (c) or play on-line via the Emmets website: Whichever way you play; we would love to have your support for 2017, there is no better means of helping the club; maintain a high standard of playing facilities; support our juvenile structures; provide games and coaching. Contacts Pauric Keenan 087-7669761(Chairperson.carrickmacross.monaghan@gaa.ie) Eamon Allen 086-8145517 (Secretary.carrickmacross.monaghan@gaa.ie) Niall Carolan 087-7380562 (Treasurer.carrickmacross.monaghan@gaa.ie) John Scully 0876393623 (jscullyfalachara@eircom.net) Francie McGinn 085-1743609  (mfmcginn@eircom.net) Jimmy Finnegan 087-9215698

Emmets Handball! The GAA League is still continuing with the latest rounds played on Wednesday last. However the A team had a bye while the B team journeyed to Monaghan town to play the Harps in their splendid complex. Unfortunately they were defeated by two games with the final overall score at five games to three in favour of the hosts. The team on duty were Glenn O’Reilly, Robert Duffy, Frank Duffy and Jimmy Hayes. The juvenile coaching is ongoing on each Monday evening at 5 o’clock in the Emmet Centre where tuition in the ancient game is administrated and supervised by experienced handballers. At the moment it is envisaged that the senior leagues will be up and running in the next week. Also last week the Monaghan Handball Championship commenced and after the first round the following Emmets are through to the quarter finals of the novice three and novice four competitions; David McCarthy, Michael Duffy, Robert Duffy and Ronan Kiernan. Commiserations to the gallant Cathal Keenan; despite his best efforts he was overpowered by a Corduff opponent. In the minor championship Oran Kiernan succeeded in winning his semi-final duel and will now play Killian Sherry of Tydavnet in the final. He came up against a strong challenger in Justas Dambinskas of Monaghan Harps and after a splendid contest in which he pulled out all the stops; he ran out the winner by 21/16 13/21 21/14

Awards Night! The hard work displayed by the Emmets underage players and their coaches came to fruition on Friday night when the club received the “Youth Achievement Award” for 2016 in football at the  Northern Standard sponsored “Annual Dinner and Awards Presentation Night” which was held in the Hillgrove Hotel on Friday night before a distinguished audience. It was indeed a privileged moment when Youth Officer Andrew O’Sullivan who is also chairman of the Emmets juvenile structures went up to receive the award from John McArdle representing Monaghan County Committee. Of course there was another matter of pride for the club when Aaron Lynch and Nial Loughman stepped up to receive their Ulster Championship (Under 21) medals which they won with the county team last year. Both players represented the club with honour during that successful campaign and they gave the club supporters some wonderful days in what nearly ended with an appearance in the All-Ireland final. The Emmets dinner–table included club chairman Paraic Keenan and also consisted of members from each juvenile age group within the club.