Senior Ladies: Samphires 1 v 5 Dingle Bay Rovers (Scorer Sophie O’Connor.)
Hard luck to the Senior Ladies who lost out to Dingle. The score doesn’t reflect the game as with 20 to go we had a chance to make it 3-2 when Jade’s shot hit the post and rebounded off the post into their keepers hands. From the resultant attack the ball deflected over our keeper to seal the result. Try as we did we couldn’t break down a resilient Dingle defence. Well done to our girls, many of whom also had a game the day before so it was tough one for them to have to play a full 90 minutes.
Senior Men: Samphires 3 v 1 MEK (Scorers Sean Ryan(2), Ger McCarthy)
Well done to the seniors who started the new year with a well needed win after we had been stuttering before Christmas. It was a good game with MEK being resolute in their defence and it was MEK who started the scoring after 15 minutes from a shot from the edge of the box. We equalised through Sean Ryan before half time with a powerful shot. Ger Mac made it 2 with a header at the back post early in the 2nd half and late on in the game Sean again added a third to see the match out. Well done to all.
Girls U16 Castleisland 5 v 3 Samphires (2:2 HT). (Scorers: Isabel Moriarty, Lilly Nowak & Grace Reilly)
A good game on view last Saturday between 2 evenly matched which unfortunately for us we lost by a whisker but well done to both teams who gave a great display.
Boys U15s: Camp 1 v 2 Samphires (Scorer Cian McKenna (Pen), Tom Quilter)
The 15s recorded a hard fought win in Camp last Saturday morning. It was a reasonably even game with both teams on top at various times. The first quarter was even as the teams chased each other hard to close any spaces. We felt we started to get slightly on top and then Camp scored an excellent goal in a lightning counter attack. 1 nil at the half. As we were 1 down we pushed on and as the half wore on we were getting closer and closer to their goals but there was the constant threat of being caught on the counter. Our defensive unit was solid though and we restricted their chances to 1 decent effort off the post. With 10 to go Aaron started coming deep and won some clean possession. He played Conor Dennehy in on the right wing through to their goals. Conor was hauled down in the box and Cian stepped up to score the resultant penalty. We got to injury time and it was still one all with the play swinging from 1 end to the other. Finally Aaron put another pass, this time down the left wing to the onrushing Michael O’Sullivan who crossed perfectly to the far post where Tom got the jump on their defence to power home the winner. Well done to both teams for such a super game.
Girls U13s: Samphires 1 v 3 Camp (Scorer Siofra Murphy)
Samphires U13 girls had our first home advantage of 2022 against Camp last Saturday in the Premier Legue. We got fantastic support from our u11/12 squad to make a team. We enjoyed some lovely attacking play in the opening 10 minutes and were unlucky not to take an early lead. Then Camp hit us with two goals from fast play with a very strong midfield using the wings and quick ball across our box. Our girls kept strong and a lovely ball over the top saw us reduce the lead by 1 before half time. The 2nd half was a fantastic battle and Camp deserved their 3rd goal with constant pressure. We fought to the end but could never get that much needed goal.
Captain Sarah OSullivan
Boys U13s Samphires 5 v 0 Listowel Celtic (Scorers Dara Harty (2), Mikey Corridan, Danny Gazi, Tom Lenihan)
A good win for Samphires against an energetic Listowel team who put it up to us in the first few minutes. We went one up however against the run of play with a great finish from Dara Harty after he broke through the Listowel defence.
The game was back and forth but Samphires went further ahead after a lovely ball over the top from Tom Lenihan was finished by Mikey Corridan. 2-0 at half-time.
2nd half: We dominated as Listowel tired a little and went further ahead through a fine shot from Dara Harty, a goal from Danny Gazi straight from a cross after a mix-up in the Listowel defence and finally a great headed finish from Tom Lenihan. Although we won well in the end our defence of Oisin, Austin, Alan O’Connor, Diarmuid Murphy and Luke Donovan did great work also aided by Tiernan and Conor Nolan when they came on but MOTM on the day was Cillian O’Brien in our midfield.