Go-Ahead Adult League Division One Ballyboden St Endas v St Sylvesters, Wednesday 3rd May, Broomfield. 

It was to the seaside town of Malahide where our ladies senior footballers headed to last Wednesday night for our 4th league game of the season. St Sylvesters were the opposition hosting on their newly laid pitch in Broomfield. The anticipation around this match was that it would be a tight affair with Sylvesters now able to call on recently retired ex Dublin players Sinead Aherne and Niamh McEvoy. However Boden also had in their line up ex Dub and double All Star Rachel Ruddy returning after an almost 4 years break.

Syl’s started off like a house on fire and were 1.1 up in under 5 minutes as the visitors took their time to settle. A point on 9 minutes from the left foot boot of Shauna Feely  got our Ladies off the mark and this score seem to trigger the team into action. Sylvesters started to find it hard to get through the middle third where Captain Hannah Murphy and midfield partner Sarah Baynes were particularly prominent. Forwards Claire Kirwan, Shauna Feely and Kate Donaghy were now beginning to find their shooting boots and along with the returning Ciara Ruddy, who only started because of an injury to regular full forward Natalia Hyland, they opened up the hosts on a regular basis. Ruddy’s points on the 11/12/19 minutes were probably the highlight of the first half until right half back Hannah Byrne struck a monster point from way out on the right touch line from all of 40 metres which had many of her teammates, Megan and Sadie in particular, looking on in disbelief! Half Time score: St. Sylvesters 1.4 Ballyboden 0.10.

The second half continued much as the first half ended with Ballyboden continuing to play a fast fluid style of football that the host team were finding increasingly difficult to counteract against and on the few occasions that they showed promise, mainly through the efforts of the evergreen Sinead Aherne, they were quickly snuffed out by the outstanding Rachel Ruddy, Rachel Nugent and Hannah Leddy. Murphy and Baynes, so similar in style and substance, were now utterly dominant around the middle with Niamh McEvoy of Sylvesters finding it increasingly difficult to have any influence on the proceedings. A goal from the flying Claire Kirwan on 15 minutes put the game to bed as she rifled an unstoppable shot from 20 metres after taking about 10 steps!!!! Goal given. However probably the score of the second half goes to Shauna Feely whose sweetly struck point moved across the pitch from right to left would have made Dublin’s Paul Mannion proud. Full time score: Ballyboden St Endas 1.15 St Sylvesters 1.06

Scorers: Claire Kirwan 1.4, Shauna Feely 0.4, Ciara Ruddy 0.3, Kate Donaghy 0.2, Hannah Byrne and Sarah Baynes 0.1 each

Next up: Wednesday 10th May League Division One v Na Fianna at 7.30pm

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