17s Continue Winning Run

Samphires U17s had another match in the league last weekend after our U16 cup semi final on that day had to be postponed. Our opponents were Castlegregory on a desperately windy day. A very strong westerly wind blew in from the sea down the pitch and we had the advantage in the first half. Our keeper Eoghan O Brien had only 2 touches of the ball in the first half as the game was played completely in the Castle half. Castle played the half well and shored up their defence for the onslaught. We probably played too much through the centre and didn’t penetrate as much as we would have liked. We had a number of chances but until the 30th minute we failed to convert. Eventually we scored when Thomas Dwyer scored after their keeper parried a ferocious effort from Bobby O’Regan. Bobby was dangerous from long range efforts but after 40 minutes it was Sean Higgins who put us 2 nil up at the far post from a good cross from Thomas Lenihan but that was it (2-0) at half time. The second half was completely different from our point of view and we had a lot more defending to do. For the first 15 minutes we did quite well and maybe had 1 or 2 good chances to wrap up the game but didn’t capitalise, the conditions being a mitigating factor. In the last 25 minutes Castle got momentum and dominated but we restricted them to long range efforts in general. With 10 minutes to go a ball fell to one of their midfielders outside our box, he connected perfectly, kept it down and it rocketed into our net leading to a few minutes of real pressure which we just about handled – our u17s is a team that usually can tough it out when it needs to and probably is the main reason why we are as high in the table as we are. Eoghan in particular showed again how good he can be with 2 fabulous saves from frees and Jamie Hogan somehow cleared one off the line when it seemed we would concede. We were our own worst enemies in this period as we conceded frees around our box by pulling at opponents jerseys needlessly and it was from these that we were in most peril. In the end we won 2-1 so well done to all the 14 players on the day for their great efforts in galeforce conditions. Thanks too to the Castlegregory team and mentors for such a good game.