Bride Rovers 2-10, Shamrocks 1-5
Bride Rovers made the trip to Shanbally a winning one on a bitterly cold Saturday afternoon last, over a gallant but once again, extremely young Shamrocks team.
Due to a number of defections by older players due to various reasons, the Minor team in 2013 will rely heavily on our u16 panel and things wont always go their way.
For instance today, the Shamrocks lads played well in the first half, with the aid of the breeze to lead by 1-4 to 0-2 at halftime and they were going ok. However, some wrong options were taken in the second half, in particular the idea of trying to score goals all the time and also, the physical strength of the Rovers players shone through. In addition, some of the players got a little frustrated in that second half, one of them getting sent off 15 minutes from the end. These small little things were discussed by the panel and mentors afterwards and will be addressed hopefully for the next few matches. They are a young but promising group and despite the scoreline today, they have competed very well in their two matches so far, training is going well and all this after the team was nearly pulled from the competition 2 weeks ago.
The returning Alex O’Sullivan opened the Shamrocks scoring with Brian Coffan adding a few frees before Coby O’Grady slotted home the goal after 15 minutes of the first half. Slowly but surely, Bride came into the game and score 0-2 themselves to leave it 1-4 to 0-2 at the break.
The largely dominated the second half and chipped away at the Shamrocks lead, leveled it and then went 3 points clear with 10 to go. A Shamrocks shot hit the post just after that and with the man advantage, Bride added on a further goal to run out deserving 8 point winners.
Minor (and u16) training this coming Wednesday night, 7.30pm, up at the pitch under lights.
Team: D. Raleigh, S. Kelleher, S. Kidney, T. Murphy, A. O’Sullivan, D. Scriven, S. O’Brien, L. Garvan, B. Coffan, C. Scriven, B. Crowley, C. O’Grady. Subs used – N. Hayes, C. Hayes.
