Today’s fixture looked to be in doubt for this Mooncoin Girls U17s team right up until the eleventh hour , as we weren’t sure we would have numbers available to field . But we needn’t have worried , as the 14s and u16s girls stepped foward to help their U17 club mates.

The game started with our girls very nervous , and conceding a goal within the first 5 minutes due to lack of communication when defending a corner, the girls heads dropped slightly. But that didn’t last long, the team began pulling together and were hunting down and fighting for every ball .

Luiseach O Donohue played out of her normal winger position today and stepped in to help as part of our back four with Sophie Scahill , Kate Mc Garth and Ciara O Keeffe . They settled in and worked tirelessly for keep any Bohs attack under control .

Emily Blackmore donned the Goalkeeper gloves today and stepped between the posts . Coming up the pitch on the 25 minute mark to take a free kick in the hopes of an equaliser, that unfortunately didn’t result in the back of the net .

The game went to the break at 1-0 to Bohemians

In the second half we pressed and tried to get the ball up to Bohs half of the pitch as much as we could … We made full use of the subs bench today and all the girls saw some game time .

The result today didn’t go out way , but it was wonderful to see the girls all line out today for their club and for each other .

With the sun shining brightly from early morning, today was always going to be a good day for football and so it proved to be as an unbeaten Park Rangers team came to Suir Crescent.

The early exchanges saw some good passing from Park Rangers and some fine defending from Mooncoin, although it was Mooncoin that got the first on target shots of the match.

This first half was a tight affair, with Will Walsh having to take command of his goal area a number of times. In injury time of the 1st half the deadlock was broken as the Park Rangers left-back hit a fine free kick in to the goal.

One nil down at half time and with the season on the line the next 30 minutes were crucial, and the Mooncoin boys were rightly up for it, apply pressure from the first seconds of the 2nd half.

The Park Rangers keeper made some good saves but Conor Walsh, Sean O’Donoghue, Finn Foskin and Will Mcloughlin all pushing hard and created some fine chances, and sure enough got back in to the game with a goal scored by Conor right on the line.

The Mooncoin tails were up and the boys kept applying pressure, and derseved to go ahead from another goal by Conor W.

Now it was time to dig in and Mooncoin were ready for it, with Ben, Eoghan, Naoise, Sam and Canice fighting for every ball. Naoise H. was just awesome in defence with a Franco Baresi display and if anything did come through Eoghan was in goal to mop it up.

In midfield Daniel, Charlie and Luke worked their socks off and gave it everything and Sam Murphy came on to ensure the tight defense remained unbreakable.

The whistle went, Mooncoin won 2-1 and go top of the u13b league and the shouts of joy could be heard all over the village.

The Academy Boys headed to Williamstown, the home of De La Salle for a set of exciting matches today.

The De La Salle crew were fantastic hosts and we can’t wait to have them out in Mooncoin soon.

Friday was a great evening for football as the Mooncoin Academy girls hosted girls from Piltowns.

There was loads of super play during the games, some great goals and there were so many girls teams that the photographer couldn’t get around to all the teams.