Results Sept 30th – Oct 1st

Seniors: FAI Junior Cup – Ennis Town 0 v 4 Samphires (Scorers Ivan Parker, Bill Mullins, Daniel Clinton, Pa McCarthy)

On Sunday our Senior team travelled to Ennis to take on Ennis Town in the FAI Junior Cup. We started brightly and created a few openings early on with Dan Clinton and Sean Foley getting a foothold in the middle of the park. We made the breakthrough on the 15th minute when a blocked shot from Chris Murphy fell to Ivan Parker on the edge of the box and he placed is shot low and hard beyond the diving keeper. Ennis who had been very compact early came out of their shell and forced a good save from Eoin O’Brien from a free kick. Ruairi Kelly, Dave O’Sullivan, Sean Allen and JJ Prior were in total control at the back at this stage. Then Sean sent Bill Mullins on a run, he sent defenders the wrong way with his dribbling and slotted a second. Now we were in total control and as we pushed on we got a deserved 3rd goal. Ryan Dolan linked well with Ivan who found Clinton and he danced by 2 defenders and expertly finished to the corner on the stroke of half time. 3-0 at the break.

We continued our dominance into the second half and as we rolled the bench we in no way weakened the side. Pa McCarthy, Dave Ahern, Des McCarthy and Thomas Lenihan all came on to play really well. It was in fact Pa Mac making his second debut for the club who got the fourth when he latched onto a Parker cross to make it 4-0. A good performance and a clean sheet is always a good day at the office and we hope to build on this in the coming weeks. Our thanks again to Ennis Town on a sporting game and their hospitality afterwards with a bit of grub for the boys.

U16: Park B 3 v 2 Samphires (Scorers  Gavin Burrowes(2))

After a poor first half where we were caught on the break twice early in the half. Again on the 35th minute the same happened leaving us with a mountain to climb going in 3 down. We played much better in the second half getting 2 back through Gavin Burrowes but were unable to force an equaliser with the Park rearguard holding firm. Hopefully we will learn from this and play from the off in future.

U14:Samphires 1 v 1 Castleisland (Scorer Eddie McCarthy)

Our 14s opened their campaign last weekend at home to Castleisland. It ended 1 all after a keenly contested game. Both teams had chances to win the game throughout and it looked like 1 goal would be enough to settle it. With 8 minutes to go one of our lads was tripped in the box and Eddie McCarthy scored the resultant penalty. Castleisland ramped up the pressure in pursuit of an equaliser and forced a succession of corners and from one of these corners we conceded a very harsh penalty which was converted to leave it 1 all which was how it finished. Well done to both teams for their efforts.Our best player on the day was Keith in goals who was very solid throughout. For our lads it was a decent start and we would hope to push on from here.