Great Display By U17s

We played another match in the U17s league in Mounthawk Park in Tralee away to AC Athletic. We played out a draw in the corresponding fixture about 6 weeks ago in Fenit so we knew it was going to be tough again. In the end we finished up 2-1 winners, a result we felt we deserved both on general play and number of chances but it was never comfortable with AC’s direct style always a threat. Even though we played some of our best football of the season to date it was our back 5 of Eoghan O Brien,Jamie Hogan,Padraig O Connor,Jack Kelliher and Paul Nolan that came out with the most credit from the game as they minimised the number of chances the opposition had. The game started with both teams up for the game, there were some tetchy fouls leaving the ref no choice but  to brandish a number of yellow cards to both teams. After 12 minutes AC penetrated our back 4 for maybe the only time in the game but Eoghan narrowed the angle and coaxed their striker into a shot to the near post which he duly pushed out for a corner when maybe a shot to the far side of the net might have yielded a better reward. After this we responded and put some passes together releasing Thomas Dwyer down the left to do damage. Gary Nolan was combining with Bobby O’Regan and Frosty Ronan down the right and eventually we had a few chances of our own against a very game AC defence. Up front David Murphy was finding his range and after 2 narrow misses he eventually scored after a fantastic move from the back involving 7 players playing 2 touch. Eventually David Egan, who gave a man of the match performance, played an exquisite through ball to David Murphy who controlled in the first touch and scored with his second touch with a stunning shot across his body into the far top corner. 2nd Half – we introduced Thomas Lenihan, Sean Higgins and Oisin O Brien at various stages in this half and each made a valuable contribution and none more so than Oisin who scored what worked out to be the winner after Thomas Dwyer somehow kept a ball in play that seemed destined to go wide; he then played a quick ball to the front post where Oisin had made a run and before they could react it was in the net. This was after we had conceded a penalty for a handball which was expertly dispatched to make the score 1 all. For the final 20 minutes we created quite a number of chances to make it 3 -1, David Egan came close twice with 2 good efforts outside the box. Sean was 1 on 1 with the keeper but squeezed the ball past the post. As AC attacked with numbers we had a number of counters but took the wrong options and never put the game beyond their reach.  On the other side of things AC attacked with intent for the last 10 minutes but Eoghan was only called on once to make a save which was, as said already, down to dogged defending by the back 4. Well done to all on the day.