Match Report - U16 East Football – Aghada V Killeagh

Our U 16 footballers started their League campaign against a very strong and physical Killeagh side. On a perfect evening for football in Rostellan. The game started at a very fast pace with Eoin Motherway opening the scoring after just one minute with a great point. This was quickly followed by scores from Neill Cunningham and Michael Joseph.

John Manning was putting in a man of the match performance between the posts as Killeagh started to apply a lot of pressure. Two-point blank saves from John on the 12th and 13th minutes kept Aghada’s lead intact.

On the 19th Minute, the goal machine Fintan Cody struck a peach of the goal and within two minutes of his first Fintan was in again and only the cross bar stopped a certain goal. Dan Leahy, Scott Whyte and Sean Og were marshalling the defence and doing untold damage on the counter attack.

Neill Cunningham and Conell Rooney were dominating the midfield and setting up attack after attack. 22 minutes into the game disaster struck when a Dan Leahy received a black card, however the very versatile Thomas Land when straight into the full back position and did a fantastic job there.

Seamus Moloney, Jack Cobert and Ben Walsh added to a super first half performance. Aghada finished the half with another score from Fintan. The half ended 1-07 to 0-02 in favour of the Aghada men.

At half time mentors asked the players to increase their effort and to give an extra 20%. The player’s response was more like 50% extra. Seamus Moloney now pulling the strings in the half forward line along with Eoin Motherway and Jack Colbert. Captain Fantastic Neill Cunningham added another four points to Aghada’s total as the scores were coming more freely and bit by bit the score line opened.

John Manning was doing an excellent job marshalling his defence, with Sean Og and Sean O’Callaghan creating chance after chance.  Thomas Land was also putting in a huge performance in the back line.

The half back line of Scott Whyte, Donagh Collins and Kalem Keane were like an inter county defensive line. “Thou shalt not pass” was the moto of the night for the 3 defenders.

With the final score line ending up 1-11 to 0-04 to Aghada, you could say it was a very once sided match. However, the score line was not a fair reflection on both team’s performance on the night.