Oldcastle U-13s Finish Season in Style
Oldcastle 4-6 St Patrick’s 2-4
The Oldcastle U-13s headed to Dunganny this evening ( 26 Nov.2019 ) with an unbroken run of victories throughout their Autumn League.
It was St. Pat’s who started the best however, with 1-02 on the scoreboard before Oldcastle got going.
It always seems to take Oldcastle teams a while to get used to the bounce of the ball in this 3G pitch and so it was tonight, but once they got going, there was no looking back. A Rory Crawley free was the opening score. The resulting kick-out was caught by the same Rory, and hoofed back in via Paul Hennessy who tipped it to the waiting Mark Cadden for a lovely goal.
A good clearance soon after by James Gibney denied St. Pats a score. With the momentum swinging back to Oldcastle, Thomas Sheridan made another great clearance, getting the ball to Pat Crawley who got a lovely pass onto Shane Boylan, he fisted it over to the speedy Tom Lynch who was making a great run upfield and dummied the keeper to add another lovely goal.
Rory Crawley was being regularly fouled, and a resultant converted free was our next score. Once again he was fouled, and this next free was passed on to Tom Lynch who sailed it over the bar. A St. Pats kickout was caught beautifully by Lucas Skelly who fed it on to Lee Keatinge, on again to Paul Hennessy and finally to Ryan Halpin who smashed it to the back of the next for another goal to Oldcastle, leaving the half-time score Oldcastle 3-03, St. Pats 1-02.
The Oldcastle defence were working well together, with goalie Cormac Guirke putting on a great performance, and James Gibney, Padraig Lynch and Oliver Hjert working hard throughout. Thomas Sheridan was impressive, and it was a great intercept and ball upfield from him which was caught by Rory Crawley and sailed between the posts for our next point of the match.
St. Pats replied with a point of their own, and indeed they were putting on a much improved performance from their previous league match against us. Tom Lynch took another for Oldcastle, before St. Pats got in for a goal, proving again they were up for the fight.
Jack Smith then came into his own, making some fantastic catches around the halfway line and feeding in some great balls, ably assisted by Jamie Pakenham. A fine catch by Jack was fed on to Shane Boylan, back to Jack, and on to Rory, a narrow wide resulted in a 45 which sailed over. The kick-out was taken down by Pat Crawley who promptly passed to brother Rory who dispatched it straight back over the bar for Oldcastle’s final score of the game, a classy performance from a classy team, who are well deserving winners of this Autumn League, unbeaten from start to finish. A consolation free for the opposition left the final score Oldcastle 4-06, St. Pats 2-04.
Well done to all the lads, this was a long league, starting way back on August 31st, and with seven league matches plus a Semi and then tonight’s final, that’s nine matches in total, victories all.
Well done also to coaches Ronan Crawley, Fergal Smith, Brendan Halpin and Jason Scully for all their hard work throughout.
Joint Captains Paul Hennessy and Tom Lynch gracefully accepted the Cup from Coiste na nÓg Secretary Ciaran Flynn, to great celebrations from all the team and supporters.
Oldcastle: Cormac Guirke, Padraig Lynch, James Gibney, Oliver Hjert, Thomas Sheridan, Jack Smith, Pat Crawley, Tom Lynch (1-02), Jamie Pakenham, Rory Crawley (1-04), Ryan Halpin (1-00), Paul Hennessy, Mark Cadden (1-00), Shane Boylan, Lucas Skelly, Lee Keatinge.