The Donella Crawford 6s’ provides a platform for high school girls to come together and take part in shinty, while remembering Donella, who was a huge advocate of the girl’s game. Ardnamurchan High School, once again, offered to host the event which saw 16 teams sign up.

It was great to see all 16 teams (around 130 girls) participating, and excellent to welcome pupils from Glasgow Gaelic School and also Lochgilphead High School who have never attended before.

Teams were split into 2 groups and played across 4 pitches, fixtures were handed out and we got underway, slightly later than planned but still with plenty of time to get through the games.

In the group stages each team played each other once allowing for the top school teams from each league to progress to the final. In Group A Inverness Royal Academy came though their group unbeaten and headed straight for the final. In Group B Plockton and Kingussie were tied on points and a play off had to take place to determine who was going to progress to the final.

The play off game was extremely close but some deadly finishing by the Plockton team was enough to see off Kingussie and see them through to the final.

The final showcased some fantastic shinty played by both teams, both very young squads with at least another one or two years left to play again in this competition. Inverness Royal Academy came out the quickest with a goal inside the first two minutes. Plockton never let their heads go down for a second and levelled up quickly. The game swayed from end to end before Lexie Mackenzie doubled Plockton’s score, some strong tackling and nice passages of passing play by both teams were seen by the small crowd who had managed to stay for the final. It was Lexie MacKenzie once again who sealed the game off by scoring a 3^rd, completing her hattrick and securing a Plockton victory for 2023.

Alan Gray, Active Schools Coordinator for Ardnamurchan (and the days First Aider) was on hand to conduct the presentations, giving the medals and the trophy to the winning Plockton Captain, Poppy Glasgow. Congratulations to everyone at Plockton High School for their victory.

The Camanachd Association would like to thank Annie, Jacob and Ros for taking the time out their day to referee the event, to Alan Gray for being on hard for any First Aid throughout the day and to Colm O’Rua and Ardnamurchan High School for hosting yet again. Already looking forward to next year.