The league winners had their first game in the cup last night against the very good tramore side who finished only 2 points behind them in the league and were the only team to take points off the lads all season , so we knew it was going to be a tough game .
Wayne changed up the formation with a diamond 4 in midfield to crowd the middle , and it worked very well . The first half was very tight and evenly matched with brilliant strength an good hard tackling on display from both sides .
We limited tramore to mabey 1 or 2 long range efforts which never troubled our goal , we had a couple of half chances ourselves but went in at halftime 0-0.
The second half was much the same both teams really giving Everyting they had , our boys worked unbelievable hard all over the field giving tramore no space or time on the ball from front to back .
On 65 minutes our work paid off , Ian synnott crossed from the right side to Johnny Kavanagh who held the ball well and could have had a penalty when he was taken down but he quickly got himself up and buried it into the left hand corner , that’s 8 goals in 4 games for in form Johnny .
Our hard work continued and with tramore not being able to create anything tempers started to flare a little , with both sides having a couple of bookings . We made some changes as the legs got a little weary . Kieran o Brien replaced robbie walsh , pj McGrath for Kevin Dowley , liam walsh for wayne kelly , Jamie Moore for Ian synnott, eoghan walsh for Daniel synnott . The fresh legs helped us keep up the fierce pressure never giving the opposition time on the ball . Liam walsh hit a tramore man with a crunching tackle (but fairly) shortly after coming on and again things got heated between both sets of players but we didn’t let any of the handbags get to us and got straight back into playing good football again ,when we had it we didn’t panic playing nice passing and moving in all parts of the pitch . And in the end ran out 1-0 winners in one of our best performances of the season to date .
Team – ross o keeffe , Ivan Tobin , chris o Hanlon , Wayne kelly , Jason Sauvage , Ethan Ryan , robbie walsh , Daniel synnott , kevin Dowley , Ian synnott , johnny Kavanagh .
Subs used – K.o.brien , Pj McGrath , L.walsh , j.moore, E.walsh.
It’s a credit to all the players after a tough league winning season to put in such a brilliant performance against a very good tramore side . After the game the junior league presented captain Daniel synnott and the squad with the 2b league winning shield and medals in scenes of great joy in ashgrove . Well done to all involved , next up in the cup is villa 2a fixture and time not scheduled as of yet , but if the boys keep turning in performances like this a league and cup double could really be a possibility . Well done boys , HON THE COIN ☘️☘️☘️