Our 18s team trave
lled to Listowel last Sat for a league match. After last week’s good performance we travelled with a degree of confidence and in the end finished with a 2 all draw. Listowel dominated the first half with our lads slow to settle. We had quite a number of U17s playing and physically we were under pressure throughout this half. Defensively we were not as sharp as usual and conceded a couple of chances early on which should have been punished. But we escaped for a while and got into the game with Thomas Lenihan, Darren Chester and Gordon Burrowes in midfield getting to grips with things. On the left and right we had Oisin O’Brien and Sean Higgins who posed a threat throughout. Luke Dalton gave us a physical presence up front and stopped their big centre backs from coming forward with the ball. Brian O’Regan in goals had to be good for us and made a number of crucial interventions. We conceded 2 poor goals near half time where poor defending both in midfield and at the back was exposed. In both cases when we missed our first tackle the second man was not in a position to cover and the quicksilver Listowel forwards showed their class to take advantage. Crucially just on the halftime whistle Sean and Thomas worked a one-two down the right wing and Sean put in an early cross which Oisin got on to, he did a trick, was fouled in the box and the same player coolly scored from the spot to leave it 2-1 at the half. We had a much better half and turned the tables on Lstowel and we now could argue that we might have had a few goals. Our back 4 of Padraig O’Connor, David Murphy, Thomas Dwyer and John Dillane really got on top and repelled and started many attacks. We introduced Max Benner and Bobby O’Regan into the midfield and both did very well for us. With 20 minutes to go we scored when Sean crossed a beauty between the centre backs and there was Bobby to sidefoot past the keeper into the corner. We pushed and pushed for the next 15 minutes. We had the ball cleared off the line twice, balls across the box,balls creeping narrowly wide and finally Christopher Murphy hit the bar and it bounced down behind the line but the ref was unsighted and couldn’t give it. On the other side of it Listowel were dangerous when they countered at pace and gave us problems from corners and in the last minute had a good shout for a penalty but it wasn’t given. Final score Listowel Celtic 2 Fenit Samphires 2.