Some days are probably best forgotten and Saturday last was certainly one of those for our U15A squad in their away trip in Killarney.
8-0 doesn’t lie too much unfortunately as Celtic were rampant in front of goal in a game played in perfect conditions on their all-weather pitch. However, there were times in this game when we competed and perhaps even outplayed the hosts, but these were too far and few between.
Despite the scoreline Sean Collins was quite brilliant in defence as Gearoid Dillane was in midfield. Indeed Gearoid hit the cross bar in the first half with a rasping 30 yards drive which Kiwi did well to follow up but their keeper was sharp enough to deflect his headed effort away.
Gearoid again forced the Celtic keeper into an outstanding save in the second half during a 10 minute spell where we dominated midfield. Conor Lowe made a number of surging runs from midfield but time and again our final pass just couldn’t get through and it from one of these nearly chances at 3-0 down that the killer goal came.
The center half for Celtic took a quick goal kick and although the ball was clearly rolling when he struck the kick out play was allowed to continue and with our midfield stretched from the previous attack Celtic scored the killer goal to make it 4-0.
After that Celtic continued so pass the ball wide where our full backs were often caught in an impossible 2 v 1 situation and it was from these wide positions that almost all of Celtic’s goals came from. This was certainly a lesson on defensive responsibility for our wide men that we will have to learn quickly.
Hopefully, this will prove to be a learning experience for everyone involved and the boys will knuckle down to some hard work in training starting with an U14A friendly tonight at 7.30pm.
