It was a breezy morning that greeted the u11A’s on their trip to Camp to play the quarter final of the Kerry Cup. You could tell that the squad were up for it on the day which might have had something to do with the large group of supporters that turned up to cheer us on.
The pitch itself was a bit bumpy but pretty dry after the heavy rain that had fallen overnight. We started off with Liam between the sticks with a back four protecting him of Darragh, Jack and Danny with Edward sweeping anything that got through. However we had started the game with a good attitude so it was the home goalkeeper that was seeing most of the ball early on. Cianan, Colin and Conor in midfield were passing the ball around nicely and with Cillian’s pace up front we were piling on some pressure, particularly when our two wide players, Darragh and Danny started to play further up the pitch.
In all of these games the first goal is very important and it was vital that it would go our way and it did when after some lovely work on the edge of the area Cianan finished expertly to the bottom right corner. This was the start of a good period for us and Colin was the next to find the next when he cut in from the left and took a shot which ended up over the line. 2-0 to the Park and piling on the pressure. The third goal was a first goal of the season for Danny when at the end of a very good team move he struck a fine shot to the net. We had at this stage started to use a very strong bench when David came in to midfield, Josh came in at right back when Darragh took a bit of a knock and Sean came in at left back. The fourth goal was again scored by Colin when he cut in from the left and this time struck a really good shot to the roof of the net. H.T. 0-4 to the Park.
In the second half we took the opportunity to play players in positions that they had not played competitively in before but credit to them they took to new formations and positions extremely well. Camp were battling really hard in the early stages of the second half and making it difficult for the lads to create too much early on. As in the first half, Cianan opened the scoring in the second half to get his second of the day. Not long after and after some really good work in the middle of the field the ball was fed out to Danny on the right side and he finished with a shot across the Camp keeper to the bottom corner for a really nice finish. A bit like waiting for a bus, once one comes along, a second is usually not that far behind.
One aspect of our play was that our set piece delivery from corners was really good and had Camp under pressure each time. It was not a major surprise that from one of these deliveries the ball ended up in the Camp net following a deflection from a defender. The eight goal of the day was a third for Colin who had spurned a couple of chances for his hat-trick earlier in the half but finish well after being picked out by a through ball from Darragh.
The whole squad were trying to get in on the scoring act at this stage and the final chance fell to Danny who after a pass from Cianan finished to the roof of the net to complete his hat-trick. F.T. 0 – 9 .
It was a good performance against a Camp side who never gave up. Its important we keep a good attitude and therefore we have to continue to work hard in training which continues every Wednesday and Friday, so see you there.
We had a couple of players coming towards the end of sickness with us today and there are a couple of others who didn’t quite make it because of illness. Hope all are feeling better soon.
Report by P.Doody , Picture by P.Carmody .
