Midleton Ladies Football News 32/17

On Thursday evening our Minor Girls travelled to Youghal to take on Youghal in Round 3 of the East Cork Minor League. We only had 11 girls at our disposal and Youghal who had 14 matched our 11.

On a lovely afternoon for football we started spritely and from the throw in attacked the youghal goal. Before try as we could we could not find the scoring target. In the first 10 minutes we were camped in the youghal half of the pitch playing down the hill into the clubhouse goal aided by a slight breeze. Due to wayward shooting and a resilient youghal defence it took us 10 minutes to register our first score which came in the shape of a goal. This settled the girls and went on to register a further 1:8 before the break, most of these scores coming in the middle 10min period. In the 10 minute spell we lost our shape and began to tire and youghal owned that spell running in for 1:2

Score at half time, Midleton 2:8 Youghal 1:2

Second half playing up the hill against the breeze was going to be a more difficult task, and Youghal who had the advantage of being able to recycle the girls in and out brought the game to us and had the ball over the bar from the throw in. For the next 10 mins it was all Youghal and pulled back the game to a 3 point game. We were completely dead on our feet and found it difficult to deal with Youghal’s running attacking play. Then Youghal were awarded a penalty that would have levelled the game only for Rhea’s unbelievable save who not only blocked the ball by diving to the bottom right hand corner, but also gathered it and bust out with it and set up a counter attack that saw us rattle the Youghal net. This inspired energy into the team and the whole unit raised their game, and for the next 15mins the ball was moved up and down the field with abandon by two energetic teams. With 7mins remaining Youghal had the deficit down to 3 points again but an opportunist goal  from a cleverly taken free by Sabadh who found our full back racing up the wing to receive the pass who lobbed the ball in over the goalies head to bring us ahead by 6 points again. This broke youghals hearts who in fairness but in an incredible shift. Our girls with the wind in their sails finished strong on a scoreline of 5:14 to Youghal’s 3:7.

This game is a prime example of what can be achieved when a team plays as one unit, the support they gave each other, the encouragement, their work rate, and the exhausted smiling faces at full time would encourage any girl to take up sport. Very well done girls, ye did us proud.

Team: Rhea Buckely,  Laura O’Leary, Deirdre Corcoran, Lizzi Phiri, Lucy Wallace, Abby Quirke, Molly Beausang, Kari McEvoy, Sadhbh Beausang, Aoife Franklin, Alice Reddy

Football camp with Cork Ladies Senior and Minor Players. Midleton Gaa Club starts tomorrow Monday to Thursday 10 to 2pm. €40 which is payable on the day.