U-14 A League – Silver Park – 18/03/17
Kilmacud 1 – 5
BBSE 1 – 4
On Saturday our U-14A’s made their first appearance in this year’s camogie league in Silver Park.
We faced Crokes, who were playing their third league match, and it was clear from an early stage that the added match practice was standing to them.
Our girls began with the backing of a strong breeze but, in spite of having the majority of possession, we failed to register this superiority on the scoreboard. Finally Julie opened the scoring with a fine point on the turn, but this was cancelled out straight away when they converted a free which we needlessly conceded.
We then restored our lead when Clodagh converted a “45” but this was again cancelled by Crokes. We continued to press and won another “45” which Clodagh again put between the posts to leave us leading by a point at half-time. This lead looked nowhere near adequate with us having to face a gale in the second half, but in fairness to our girls they looked a different team on the resumption, taking the game to Crokes and creating a number of chances. However we continued to struggle to convert chances to scores, and we were unlucky to meet a goalie on top of her form. However we eventually won a free which Mia confidently converted to stretch our lead to 2 points. For the next fifteen minutes we faced something of an onslaught from the wind-assisted Crokes girls, but our defence and goalie Sorcha defended with their lives and cleared two goal-bound efforts off the line.
However Crokes did score the next two points to level matters going into the closing minutes. We were then really unfortunate when a dropping ball was deflected past Sorcha by a defender’s stick, and then Crokes got the insurance point from a free.
In spite of this, our girls never gave up and finished the scoring with a great goal from Erin.
The performance of the defence was excellent, and the forward and midfield worked really hard, especially Leonie, who made something happen every time she got the ball. The team as a whole will benefit enormously from this match, and we look forward to better days ahead.