THE Cavan darts team have claimed the bragging rights after defeating Monaghan in a superb final to lift the Fairways Cup on Sunday.
The Lavey Inn in Cavan was the host for the annual event which included six teams from Cavan, Monaghan and Louth this year.
It was the Cavan A and Monaghan A outfits who proved to be the form teams on the day as they both topped their groups in the early stages of the competition.
The Cavan team then went on to defeat Louth B in their semi-final to make it into the decider.
In the other semi-final, the Monaghan A team had to come from 6-4 behind to defeat Louth A 7-6 in a brilliant contest that went right to the wire, with Louis Moyna, Daniel McEntee and Marty Burke proving the Monaghan heroes by winning those crucial three final games.
That sparked wild celebrations amongst the Monaghan contingent as they then prepared for the final with Cavan.
However they were soon brought back down to earth with a bang as Cavan began the final in sensational fashion, winning five of the first six games to put Monaghan under real pressure.
Pearse Mackle got the ball rolling for Cavan with a victory over Norman Graham in the opening match of the final, before the experienced John Nevin doubled their advantage after he got the better of Monaghan stalwart Ollie Lennon.
That lead soon turned to 3-0 as Sean Murray took advantage of some missed doubles from Justin Cawley to win another point for Cavan, before Michael McNeaney finally got Monaghan off the mark with a brilliant finish on the bull to defeat Kieran Macklin.
With the score now 3-1 in Cavan's favour, Jimmy Kelly put in a superb performance for the host team to defeat Conall McCann and extend it to 4-1, with Cavan's Stuart McDonnell defeating Brian Smith to leave Monaghan in all sorts of bother at 5-1 down.
Monaghan's Dean Crawley eased the pressure a bit for his team with a win over Aaron Early, but Cavan's Phelim O'Brien soon had them on the brink of victory with a win over Joe Cawley.
With the score now at 6-2, Monaghan once again showed their impressive powers of recovery as they went on a three game winning streak thanks to Ben McCaffrey's win over Nicky Watters, Garry McQuillan defeating Wayne Roberts and Louis Moyna overcoming Cavan's Polish eagle Michal Bucki.
That set up a grandstand finish with Cavan just one piont ahead with two games left to play.
With the tension palpable, Cavan's Paddy Brady got off to the perfect start by winning his opening leg against Daniel McEntee, before the Monaghan man showed his mettle by levelling it up and sending the game to a last leg decider.
It was Paddy who held his nerve in that to secure the crucial winning point for Cavan and send the home players and fans into raptures.
The run to the final for both teams will prove brilliant preparation ahead of the INDO Inter Counties competition in Killarney at the end of this month.
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