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Battling Greencastle fall
short
19.09.08
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ILLIES CELTIC...1 (Gallagher 13mins) GREENCASTLE...0 by Liam Porter, Inishowen Independent A LOOPING shot from Rosemary Gallagher proved to be enough to separate the sides in this entertaining U14 league play-off in Carndonagh on Sunday evening, but after a storming second half performance Greencastle will be wondering how they didn’t at the very least force this game into extra time. The goal aside the first half was an evenly contested affair, and with a league title at stake both sides seemed to take a little time to sound each other out. Not that they probably needed to do that anyway after Greencastle’s recent victory over Illies to force the play-off. Illies certainly seemed to think they knew where the Greencastle danger lay and from the start they put two players on Greencastle’s Gemma McGuinness who still had an impressive enough display for Margaret Mulhall’s girls. |
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What Greencastle were
unable to do in the first half though, was to make the
best use of the freedom given to another player with
McGuinness double-tagged, something they managed much
more effectively in the second half when they upped the
tempo and pressed more players forward. That tactic had Illies on the back foot for almost the entire second half and the fact that they managed to hang on for the win was testament not just to good fortune, but to their tenacity and determination as well. When their backs were to the wall the Illies girls rolled up their sleeves and dug deep and their determination to succeed was epitomised in the battling performances of Alison McGonagle and Tara Devlin in the second half. McGonagle may have been one of the smallest players on the field, but time and again she won important tackles, chased down and hassled opponents and when she had time she used the ball extremely effectively. |
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But there were plenty of
impressive performances from both sides, especially in
the second half when the intensity picked up and there
was a real cup final atmosphere to the game. It was tetchier in the first half but Greencastle did carve out the best of the early openings, Eimear Lafferty rolling the ball into the path of Sarah Jane McDonald in the 8th minute but her shot was well saved by Lauren Coyle in the Illies goal. At the other end the first Illies threat didn’t arrive until the 12th minute when Sarah Parker’s high cross was well palmed away by Sarah Henry. Her fist away from the cross may well have come off a defender’s hand before it was eventually hacked out of the box and with penalty claims still ringing in their ears the Greencastle girls fell behind. The ball was played on the edge of the box to Rosemary Gallagher and her shot flew high into the net past Henry to give Illies the lead. After that the closest either side came to a goal was a free from Parker that Henry gathered easily, but it was more frantic in the second half. Parker had a chance again to add to the Illies lead two minutes after the re-start, but Aoife Gillespie who saw little of the ball in the first half and played very well in the second, was alert to the danger and cleared. Alison McGonagle tried to level the scores with a long-range shot in the 43rd minute that Coyle fumbled but snatched off the line at the second attempt. By this stage Greencastle were pressing hard and Rebekah Henry won two or three crunching tackles to set them on the attack. Indeed Emma and Cathy McLaughlin at the heart of the Greencastle defence were also snuffing out any forays forward by Illies whose defence was working overtime to maintain their lead. The impressive Devlin was on hand on more than one occasion to snuff out Greencastle attacks and when McGuinness got free of her shackles with a surging run in the 54th minute, this time Elaine Coyle stepped in to make a great clearance. From the resulting corner substitute Melissa McDermott had a chance but she steered her shot wide of the target and a minute later from another corner Lauren Coyle pulled off a great save from a long-range strike by Eimear Lafferty. By that stage the Illies goal seemed to be leading a charmed life, but having survived a couple of corners and goalmouth scrambles, they held out to secure the clean sheet and the win that gave them an U.14 league title to add to the Ulster Cup crown they won a few weeks ago. For full coverage of all your weekend sport, read the Inishowen Independent. |
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