Dec 24th – U11’s 2012 Report

On behalf of Dave Doyle and Denis Barry we would like to wish all players and their parents a Happy Christmas and Best Wishes for 2013. Thanks for your ongoing support during the year.

Overall the season to date has been positive but fragmented at times. Player pool is relatively small. A number of games have had to be cancelled or re-scheduled. Striking the balance between giving everyone equal game time and maintaining a level of performance on the pitch has been difficult. Not every team we meet is rotating their squads to the same level. Training sessions have been continuously well attended. Some excellent performances in general with 1 or 2 indifferent displays thrown into the mix, but that is to be expected and this is part of the ongoing development process. The lads give 100% and that is all you can ask for.

On Sunday 9th December WGH The U11’s were at home for Sunday's SSL League clash with Ballincollig on the back of a poor team performance against Leeside two weeks earlier. In a hard fought and evenly matched game WGH were unlucky not to gain a victory and had to settle for a 1-1 draw. At half time we found ourselves 1-0 down as a direct result of a great free kick from Ballincollig. While we didn’t create many open goal chances during the first half Sean Graham, Keelan O Sullivan, James Barry and Jack Casey showed enough up front to suggest that we could get back into the game while the hard working Sean O’Driscoll and James O’Leary continued to provide stability in the centre.

The second half started with our defensive unit of Euan Gallagher, Cathal Fitzgerald and Gary Doyle taking command of the game ably assisted by Chris OMahony providing direction in goal while in midfield Kieran McCarthy started to show some glimpses of his best. A succession of very close goal attempts from Gary, James, & Stephen was finally rewarded when a magical strike from James O’Leary nestled in the top left hand corner of the Ballincollig net. Game was now on!!!

A series of substitutions followed that saw the introduction of Stephen O’Toole, Cormac Linehan & Ryan Conroy who all worked hard to maintain the dominance that we had achieved with Stephen & Ryan very unlucky not to get on the end of a couple of well worked moves. Late on Stevie G Suarez was presented with an opportunity to seal the win but unfortunately his effort was saved by the Ballincollig keeper much to Steve’s bitter disappointment at the final whistle. Overall a well deserved result and great effort by the full squad. Well done!!!

Dave Doyle