Samphires U15s Finish Season On A High

Our Under 15 team finished their season last weekend away to Killarney Celtic B on their fabulous all weather pitch. It started at 100 mph with both teams adopting a defensive posture and chances were few and far between for the first 15 minutes. We had a few regulars unavailable to us today so we were forced into playing Ryan Dolan at centre back(in the absence of John O’Shea who is on crutches and we hope he gets well soon) but he didn’t look out of place and initiated a lot of attacks for us from this position as did Jamie Hogan and Padraig O’Connor on the left and right. After about 20 minutes our superior strength in the middle told and we started to force our way behind them and eventually scored when captain Gordon Burrowes showed some fantastic movement in their box when surrounded, to somehow conjure up a chance from nothing which he finished expertly. We had a series of chances following this and front players Cian MacGarry and Jimmy Shanahan  were proving a handful and both forced the opposition into some last ditch defending. It couldn’t go on forever though and Cian eventually forced a goal when it seemed a throughball was overhit but he beat the keeper to the ball and scored. Immediately from the kickoff we got possession and Cian shot unexpectedly from long range and we were now 3 up. David Egan in midfield was having another super game and just gets better and better. 2nd half: Killarney introduced a number of their U14A team who beat our U14s 7-1 recently and it was great to see our U14s on this team, Thomas Lenihan, Antoin Stanton, Sean Higgins and Dara O’Connor more than hold their own against them. We were under pressure for a lot of this half and some sloppy defending around the middle of the pitch led to a goal for our opponents after 12 minutes and almost immediately a speculative cross from our right found it’s way into the top corner and it was now 3-2. This led to a great response from our lads and after David Murphy broke up yet another attack, he fed Ryan in midfield who played a smashing pass to Thomas on the wing who left all in his wake and ran 50 yards to force a save from their keeper but Cian was on hand to put in the rebound. Jimmy Shanahan showed his class with 10 minutes when another of his strong runs through the middle left him one on one and he made no mistake. We conceded another in the dying seconds and it finished 5 -3 to Samphires.

The club wishes to congratulate this team on it’s attitude, performances and results this season. They are a fine bunch and were top class all year at training and on the field of play.

Our Squad was : Eoghan O’Brien, Padraic O’Connor, Antoin Stanton, Gordon Burrowes, Ryan Dolan, David Murphy, John O’Shea, Bobby O’Regan, Jamie Hogan, David Egan, Thomas Lenihan, Jimmy Shanahan, Cian MacGarry, Sean Higgins, Dara O’Connor, Jack McCarthy.