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Boys Under 14 Managers: Michael Kelsey (086-8193643) John Roche (083-3070957) Training: Every Wednesday evening in Gortnaglough from 5:45 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
MATCH REPORTS SATURDAY 5TH September BALLINHASSIG (3) V CORINTHIANS BOYS B (2) - League Ballinhassig opened their U14 season having been one of three teams promoted to Division 4. A challenging game awaited against Corinthian Boys who had come down from Division 3 the previous season. Ballinhassig started brightly with some smart passing evident and good teamwork throughout. Ballinhassig seemed to be the stronger team but Corinthians were well organised in defense and a vigilant keeper snuffed out many attacks. Gary O'Leary and Dominic O'Shea worked tirelessly up front to try to break through. It took 20 minutes before mid-fielder Darragh Kelsey finally caught a shot from the edge of the box which crept into the left corner. Corinthians were stung by this and piled on the pressure. Adam Palmer, Jack Crowley, Patrick Collins and Cillian Maguire dealt with the attacks admirably until Patrick Collins was deemed to be too strong in a tackle inside the box and a penalty was awarded. Graham Keeffe almost saved, getting a toe to the ball but the result was 1-1 for half time. Ballinhassig were in a good frame of mind for the second half and when Darragh Kelsey nicked the ball from the keeper and put it in the net, followed by an excellent strike from Jack Crowley to the roof of the net, Ballinhassig were comfortable. Corinthians were not to lie down and piled on the pressure which was met by Oisin McHugh and Kevin Veale. In spite of this Corinthians scrambled a goal with 5 minutes remaining. The large number of parents on the sideline were treated to as exciting a finish as can be expected. Ballinhassig held out to win 3-2. All credit to the large panel of 17 who turned up.
SATURDAY 30TH January BALLINHASSIG (1) V CORINTHIANS BOYS A (4) - Cup 1st Round After a long break since their previous game due to weather, and faced with opposition two divisions higher, we entered this game with a degree of trepidation. However our fears proved unfounded, with an excellent display from all players to force Corinthians to work hard to break down a very solid team performance. Ballinhassig opened the game the stronger and much of the first 10 minutes was played in the opposition half. When Corinthians established their structure however they ran at the Ballinhassig defense with determined purpose. The back five of Jack Crowley, Brian O'Mahony, Adam Palmer, Cillian Maguire and Darragh Kelsey dealt admirably with repeated wave of attack, maintaining tight marking. They frustrated their opposition and minimised their ability to get a shot on target. However after 15 minutes a break down the right hand side was crossed to the centre and Corinthians took the lead. Ballinhassig regrouped and pushed forward and was finally rewarded with an excellently taken goal by Kevin Veale from the edge of the penalty box. Oisin McHugh and Dominic O'Shea worked hard to push forward along the flanks but found it very difficult to create scoreable opportunities. Denis Murphy worked tirelessly as striker to put the central defenders under pressure. With 5 minutes remaining Corinthians were awarded a free outside the penalty area and a well taken shot went to the top right corner and despite Graham Keefe getting his fingers to it, the ball found its way to the net. The second half started with Corinthians piling on the pressure looking to extend their lead. They were rewarded with a soft penalty after just 2 minutes which was duely put to the bottom left corner. All credit to Ballinhassig who did not drop their heads. The half-time substitutes of Gary O'Leary and Eoghan O'Driscoll, aided by David Cussen in mid-field ran at Corinthians and made great efforts to create opportunities. Aodhan Lynch was brought in to shore up the defence, and was very successful in frustrating the opposition. After 15 minutes Kevin Veale won a penalty when he was brought down in the box. Unfortunately he pushed the penalty too far to the right and outside the post. Five minutes later Corinthians won a second penalty. It looked like game over, until Graham Keefe made an excellent save and cleared his lines. Cory O'Neill was brought on to try to put renewed pressure up front and never gave up, trying to link up with his teammates. With 5 minutes remaining Corinthians scored a fourth from a corner after confusion whether the ball had gone out of play allowed Corinthians a free shot past the new keeper Darragh Kelsey. Despite a 4-1 loss, the team performance was highly commendable, and a great platform to build from as the league opposition are now eagerly awaited.
SUNDAY 28TH February MALLOW (3) V BALLINHASSIG (4) - League After another 4 week break due to the withdrawal of Temple Utd., the team were pitted against second in the league, Mallow Utd. Knowing that they faced a large team, Ballinhassig adopted a somewhat defensive formation with five at the back. The first ten minutes were quite tentative by both teams with no real chances on goal. Then after 15 minutes Eoin O'Driscoll took control of a loose ball out on the right and cut through the defense to place a low ball across the keeper and into the bottom left corner of the net. Buoyed by this lead, Ballinhassig pushed on and kept the pressure on the Mallow defense. Gary O'Leary was making good use of the balls which came his way and was worrying the defense. Dominic O'Shea was working hard along the left side of mid-field and finally managed to get close to the end-line and put a perfectly weighted ball into the six-yard box where Aodhan Lynch came in from the right to tap it into the net. However with 5 minutes left in the half Mallow managed to take possession of the ball in the Ballinhassig penalty-box and some loose marking allowed them to score. The second half opened with Mallow having greater confidence and running at Ballinhassig from the middle of the field. A well organised central defence of Jack Crowley, Adam Palmer and David Cussen put up a formidable force and Mallow were thwarted time after time. Graham Keefe made some fine saves and never looked like being beaten. Fifteen minutes into the half Ballinhassig won a free-kick 25 metres from goal. Darragh Kelsey volunteered to take the shot and a beautifully weighted shot clipped the underside of the bar and into the back of the net. It looked like a comfortable win was on the cards but Mallow had other ideas. They pushed forward from the mid-field and our two full-backs, Cillian Maguire on the left and Oisin McHugh on the right came under considerable pressure but both put in massive effort to break down attack after attack with the three in the centre helping admirably. Mallow however eventually found an opening to bring the score to 3-2 with 15 minutes remaining. Cory O'Neill was put up front and Denis Murphy on the right side of mid-field were asked to keep pressure on Mallow and both did just that. Cory kept harassing the Mallow defenders and finally was rewarded with winning control of a ball which he threaded behind the Mallow defense into the path of Darragh Kelsey who ran onto it and took it into the box and placed it wide of the keeper. A 4-2 lead looked to be enough with only 7 minutes remaining, but Mallow were not of the same opinion. They took control of the game and some fine ball-control put Ballinhassig under pressure. Despite magnificent commitment from the five at the back and Graham between the posts, Mallow did manage to score again with only 4 minutes to play. A never-say-die attitude of the Ballinhassig team resisted and all were relieved to hear the final whistle. This was a well deserved and hard-won three points which shows the mettle of the team. It was not the result, but the attitude and work rate of all players which was very pleasing to watch. Well done to all. Team; Graham Keeffe, Cillian Maguire, Jack Crowley, Adam Palmer, Oisin McHugh, Dominic O'Shea, Darragh Kelsey, David Cussen, Aodhan Lynch, Eoghan O'Driscoll, Gary O'Leary, Cory O'Neill, Denis Murphy, Kevin Veale (N/A as injured). SATURDAY 13TH March BALLINHASSIG (0) V MALLOW UTD (2) - League
Due to the weather
affected schedule of the current season, Ballinhassig again
faced Mallow on home
territory, two weeks after our previous victory over the same
opposition. Despite missing
Darragh Kelsey due to illness and limits to Kevin Veale's flexibility as a
result of a nagging injury, the team were keen to show that our previous
win was no "flash in the pan". Both teams again started very tentatively
with no significant opportunities in the opening 20 minutes. Cory O'Neill made every effort up
front with the little ball he received and did manage to put some balls
behind the last line of defence but we were unable to push past the stout
Mallow defence to get a shot on target. Meanwhile our own defence were
struggling to enforce their authority. Denis Murphy was working hard to
thwart numerous attacks out on the right, ably assisted by Adam Palmer and
Jack Crowley in the centre and Graham Keeffe in goal making sure he
snuffed out any opportunity.
With 7 minutes remaining in the half, Mallow managed to break
through and set up a shot for their in-rushing mid-fielders to score. Ballinhassig kept on battling to
keep the score at 1-0 to half time. Graham Keeffe had to be replaced in the goal due to injury and
Kevin Veale took his place, proving to be an able replacement. With renewed vigour the mid-field
partnership of Aodhan Lynch, David Cussen, Eoghan O'Driscoll and Dominic
O'Shea came more into the game and put Mallow under pressure, allowing
Gary O'Leary (now pushed up front) more ball to work with. However Nevertheless Ballinhassig were asserting some authority on the game and sensed a goal was coming. Then Mallow brought on a surprise "super-sub" as No. 15 and this changed the game. He took control of the game from the middle of the park and for the remaining 20 minutes Ballinhassig were on the back foot. Some heroic defending by Jack, Adam, Brian O'Mahony and ever consistent Cillian Maguire kept the game within reach. Oisin McHugh made some magnificent tackles to clear the lines on numerous occasions but his crowning glory was a Richard Dunne-like tackle when TWO Mallow attackers managed to get the ball behind our defence and were clear on goal until Oisin made a 20 yard dash from the opposite side of the 18 yard box to take the ball cleanly when Mallow were about to shoot. It was inspirational! Despite valiant efforts however, Mallow did manage to break through with 10 minutes remaining to score the all-important second goal. Ballinhassig battled on and almost scored witha rasping left foot shot from David Cussen which unfortunately as too far to the left. The final score remained 2-0 to Mallow. While this was not our best team performance to date, it was a good overall effort against the league table-toppers and there were some excellent individual performances, notably Oisin McHugh, Jack Crowley, Cillian Maguire and Gary O'Leary.
SATURDAY 11TH April BALLINHASSIG (1) V Everton (3) - League
Despite the result, this was an excellent performance from a
spirited Ballinhassig U14 team.
Having played this team a week previously, we knew that they
possessed a formidable striker who had excellent ball control and an eye
for goal. Unfortunately a
failure to focus from the very start cost Ballinhassig two goals on the
10th and 12th minutes when Everton’s No. 9 blasted a
shot into the bottom corner and then set up his fellow striker for another
well taken goal two minutes later.
While the fear was that Ballinhassig would loose heart, in fact the
opposite took place. All 11
players on the pitch got stuck in and gave a great performance for the
rest of the game. We
continued to deal with the pressure of a lightening fast attack, but David
Cussen made an excellent contribution by man-marking the Everton No.9 and
greatly limited his ability to influence the game. Graham Keefe in goal was called on
a number of times to come off his line and deal with dangerous
situations. Cillian Magure
and Adam Palmer had many questions asked of them, but repeatedly rebuffed
the Everton wingers. Oisin
McHugh gave excellent support to our defense from mid-field and Kevin
Veale continued to keep pushing forward and making runs at Everton. Despite this Everton still managed
to sneak another goal on the 25 minute mark. Three minutes later another ball
was goal-bound when placed beyond the reach of a bravely advancing Graham
Keeffe, until Cillian Maguire intuitively rushed to the goal-line and was
perfectly placed to head the ball over the bar. Ballinhassig battled on
and within minutes Eoghan O’Driscoll lobbed a perfectly weighted ball over
the Everton centre backs for striker Gary O’Leary to run on and slip it to
the back of the net. The second half was nip and tuck for the entire 35
minutes. Everton continued to
pressure for an all-important goal, but time and time again Jack Crowley
as sweeper was on-hand to support his fellow-defenders and break up the
attack. Aodhan Lynch was
excellent on the right side of mid-field, always harrying and running
along the line trying to set up Eoghan and Gary. On the left side of mid-field
Dominic O’Shea similarly worked his socks off to try to break down a
stubborn defense. A
positional change allowed Graham Keeffe try his hand in the attack when
Brian O’Mahony ably took over between the posts. Denis Murphy and Cory O’Neill came
on to bring fresh legs to our attack and both made strenuous efforts to do
so. However there was to be
no score by either side in the second half and the result remained 3-1 to
Everton. However this was one
of the teams best performances this year, and was a major improvement on
the result a week previously when the Everton beat us 10-2, (when we
missed 4 players due to other commitments and lost Brian O’Mahony to
injury in the second half reducing the team to 10 men). All 14 players should be truely
proud of their commitment and undeniable heart today. While difficult to pick out any
above the rest, Graham Keeffe, David Cussen, Aodhan Lynch and Gary O’Leary
deserve particular commendation. |
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