UNDER 12 DEVT LEAGUE: STRAND CELTIC WHITE 3 MERVILLE UTD 0
Strandhill Community Park
On a beautiful, crisp morning in Strandhill community park on Saturday last,Strand Celtic Whites continued their recent good form by defeating a gallant Merville Seaview by 3-0.
With a perfect playing surface, despite the wet weather of the previous week, Strand got at their opponents from the start. Great ball retention saw the lads put alot of pressure on Mervilles goal for the opening 20 minutes. Captain Ronan Walsh, along with Cian Bree-Galvin, Cillian Egan and David Gaynor tried valiantly to break the door down and the breakthrough did not come until 5 minuites before half time. A lovely through ball found the ever alert Cillian Egan, who finished with a drive to the bottom right hand corner.
Goalkeeper Jack Burke was having a quiet game for a change and a lot of this was down to great defending from Mickey Reddin, Daniel Kilgallon, Jack Gilligan, Liam Henehan, Liam Ryan and Ben Carroll.
More pressure unfortunately brought no more goals and we went one goal to the good at half time. The second half saw Merville come more in to it and Jack Burke was forced into a few very good saves. But as the half wore on our formidable midfield pairing of Shane McCallion and Shay Doherty began to turn the screw and it wasn`t long before we added a second when the hard working Cian Bree-Galvin turned in a cross from Ronan Walsh.
Mark Keegan, Stephen O`Connell and Dion Higgins came on to add some bite and all played very well. Mark Keegan was despartely unlucky not to score after a brilliant eight yard run through the Merville defence. Indeed Ronan and Dion also came close towards the end.
It was left to Shay Doherty to score a cracking individual goal as after beating three players he curled a shot into the left hand corner , reminiscence of the goal that Jermaine Jenas curled in for Spurs against Arsenal in midweek. This capped what was probably our best team performance so far this season. Well done to all the squad on a fine performance.
Well done to all concerned for a well deserved win. A good team performance and well done to the squad and managers Gerry Doherty, Paul Higgins and Peter Galvin. |