Our U18 team got an extremely hard earned draw away to Park FC last Sat in Tralee. Thank goodness it was a cloudy day and not too hot as we expended a huge amount of energy in search of a result. In the first half we were very much under the cosh and found it very difficult against a very good Park side who moved the ball very quickly. When we had the ball we found ourselves under pressure very quickly when we dwelt at all on it. In fairness it has been quite a few weeks since we played and our rustiness was there to see. By half an hour we had conceded 3 very good chances but somehow, with a combination of Brian O’Regan in goals, some last ditch stuff by our back 4 of Jamie Hogan,Padraig O Connor,Thomas Dwyer and David Murphy aided by some bad finishing by the Park kept it scoreless. We then got a foothold and started making inroads into the opponent half and we had a number of efforts on goal from distance but didn’t really trouble the keeper. Finally after 40 mins Oisin O Brien from the edge of the box had a shot which went narrowly wide. On the stroke of half time we conceded from a cross to the far post so 1 nil at halftime. We settled much better in the second half and had a lot more possession than in the first. Our midfield of Max Benner,Thomas Lenihan,Darren Chester, Sean Higgins and Oisin ran and tackled for the cause really giving their all. We equalised when David Murphy hit a long diagonal free into their box and one of their defenders whilst trying to clear the ball saw his powerful header end up in his own net. Both teams cancelled each other out for 20 minutes but with 15 left we conceded from a corner. In the last 10 minutes we gambled and pushed David forward and with 1 minute remaining John Dillane who had earlier replaced our lone striker Luke Dalton (who also made a telling contribution to the team) hit a shot from 25 yards which deceived their keeper and the game finished level. Gordon Burrowes and Christopher Murphy also did very well when called upon and it’s going to be very difficult to pick the team for the replay in Fenit.