Kilcock Celtic 3 Athgarvan Villa 2 01/11/2008
This was a keenly fought contest between two well-matched teams on a fresh bright morning in Scoil Dara. In the early stages the home team were dominant and broke the deadlock after ten minutes. Ian Mooney went on a run up the left wing and won a throw-in close to the penalty box. Neil Vorster swung in a “Rory Delap” style long throw and Evan Comerford flicked the ball onto Leon Glennon who volleyed over his left shoulder and the ball dropped into the back of the net.
The home team continued to raid for the next 10 minutes with chances falling to Neil Vorster, Cathal McCabe and Evan Comerford. Halfway through the first half the visitors began to settle and began to put the home defence under some pressure. This pressure paid off on the half hour when Eoin Morrissey put Dan Kavanagh through on goal and he shot passed the advancing keeper to level the game.
After the interval Kilcock started on the offensive and Athgarvan defended well and hit on the counter-attack. The game developed into this pattern for the rest of the second half. The visitors were excellent at quick breakaways and the home back four of Barry Conlon, Dane Hoban, Elliot Fowler and Adam Leonard had to dig deep on many occasions to prevent the Villa from taking the lead.
With fifteen minutes gone, Celtic regained the lead when captain Adam Leonard took a long-range goal bound shot, which deflected off a defender and past an unsighted Sean Forgarty into the visitors net.
Again Athgarvan upped their game and forced a corner on the right. Morrissey sent in cross, which was headed clear but only as far as Shane Saul on the edge of the box and he curled in a lovely low shot into the bottom right corner to level the game again.
Kilcock were determined to get their first home win of the season and threw everthing into the game. However the visitors were still very dangerous on the counter-attack and the home keeper Cian McIntyre made an excellent save on the half hour to prevent Morrissey from scoring a lead goal.
With less then ten minutes left in the game, Celtic virtually laid siege to the visitor’s goal area. Elliot Fowler scraped the crossbar with a free kick from 30 yards. Leon Glennon saw two chances go just over the cross bar and Shane O’Brien was unlucky not to hit the target from close range.
In the last minute Cormac Fallon broke down the left wing and forced a corner. Cathal McCabe sent in an in-swinger, which was cleared off the line and away towards the corner flag. The loose ball was collected by Conor Dully who created an angle for himself to send in a left footed shot, which curled into the top corner of the net to win the game for Kilcock Celtic.
This was a very entertaining game from two well-matched teams. Every player game one hundred percent in this free flowing game
Kilcock Celtic: (Back row) Shane O’Brien, Elliot Fowler, Cormac Fallon, Adam Leonard, Barry Conlon, Leon Glennon, Dane Hoban, Neil Vorster, (Front row) Ian Mooney, Cian McIntyre, Cathal McCabe, Evan Comerford, Conor Dully. Missing from Photo Michael Bambury & David Costello.
