The U15A Camogie team had to dust themselves down after the previous weekend of Féile and head to Silverpark and meet Crokes, the ultimate Division 1 Féile winners. If nothing, playing sport teaches girls about lifelong lessons such as resilience and work ethic. As the team took to the field, they were reminded of the Féile match versus Crokes two weeks ago and each girl made a commitment to themselves and their teammates that during the match they would work as a team for each other.
As the ball was thrown in, the Boden girls knew they had a score to settle with Crokes.
Despite owning the ball for the first 5 mins the Boden girls couldn’t convert the possession to scores on the board and it was Crokes who got the first score from a free. Boden battled hard, particularly around the middle 8 where the girls worked tirelessly to ensure that they came out winners of every 50 /50 ball. What was particularly pleasing is that no Crokes girls had a free strike of a ball and on one occasion Boden got 4 direct blocks on the ball – this is Boden intensity and demonstrated that the girls were up for this. Some fine display of skills were on show across the two teams and Crokes capitalised on good inter team display to get another goal. The Boden girls kept working and were unlucky not to be all square at half time score of which saw Boden behind by 2-2 to 1-2.
The half time team talk was all about “driving on” and girls knew that they had the Crokes team rattled and if they continued to increase the intensity and work rate and believed in themselves then anything was possible. With a number of positional reshuffles at half time, the Boden girls were first out of the traps and scored from a free. The momentum was definitely turning and following some good defending and long clearances Boden rattled the net for a 2nd time. A couple of fine points followed arising from great team work. As we headed down the home straight, the Boden were 2-5 to 2-2.
For the last 5 mins of the game Crokes were camped in the Boden half and the backs worked, harried and harassed to ensure no goal was given away. Some fine goalkeeping saves together with a diving save by the corner back resulted in Boden coming out ultimate winners on the day.
Post the match, the following message from Lucan U15 Manager
“Well done today. Great win for your girls against Crokes, I’d say they are buzzing”.
There were celebrations go léor by the Boden girls and to be fair they most certainly celebrated this win.
Report: Sinead McNeela
Pic: Dave Rusk [more here]