NOTES 29/1/10

Killarney Athletic made the long journey to Dublin on Sunday 24^th, and secured a very good victory over Dingle Utd. It was a pleasing victory for Shane Foley and his team. This win puts the Killarney side through to the next round of this competition. Athletic marked very well and Martin Crowley was unlucky not to have scored in the first 5 minutes of the match. The pressure applied by Athletic limited Dingle’s chances to shoot from far out. Athletic kept up the pressure for the best of the first half and were rewarded with a goal. This came from a free taken by Rory O’Sullivan. The Dingle defense could not deal with it and Lucas Polyak from 10 yards out put the Killarney side 1 – 0 up at half time. In the second half, Mick Maloney, David Looney, Galen Carroll, Brian O’Reilly and Rory O’Sullivan began troubling the Dingle defense at every opportunity. It was only a matter of time before Athletic scored again. This came after a move involving several Athletic players, before Brian O’Reilly with a brilliant shot beat the Dingle keeper to put Athletic 2 – 0 up. The remainder of this half saw Dingle create a few chances, but nothing that troubled Brian O’Connor in the Athletic net. This was a great team performance from Athletic but man of the match must go to Martin Crowley. Final score Killarney Athletic 2 Dingle Utd. 0. Killarney Athletic would like to thank the founder members and the former players who came out to support the team in Dublin on Sunday and to all the supporters who travelled from Kerry.

We started the game brightly with Gavin O’Shea and the in form Jack O’Connor causing the Celtic back four problems, Cian O’Lionard was a constant threat to the home team down the left flank also. We lost the influential Gavin O’Shea halfway through the first half who made way for Kimfuta. This change left Celtic gain more possession of the ball but the back four with Rory O’Riordan and Kieran Murphy in great form were able to deal with the threats. Ronan Murphy and Paul Clifford in the middle of the park came more into the game and this gave our front men of Diarmuid Galvin and Jack O’Connor more opportunities to hurt the Celtic back four, and Jack O’Connor came close with a fine 25 yard effort that the Celtic keeper could only parry, then in the dying minutes of the game Celtic scored a deflected goal that Steven Cahillane in the Athletic goal could do nothing about, to leave it 1-0 to Celtic at the end. Shane O’Sullivan, Jack O’Connor, Ronan Murphy, Cian O’Lionard, Rory O’Riordan, Paul Clifford and debutant Deavon O’Flatherty impressed in a good team display.

Always guaranteed to produce goals- this game did not disappoint. Athletic started well with Jordan Kiely putting us 1-0 within minutes. However, a bad injury to Jordan caused him to withdraw from the game and the match quickly turned in Park’s favour. Further injuries and lack of concentration in midfield meant that our defence was under severe attack and, as if hit by a hurricane, Athletic were 6-1 down by half time!! Following a hairdryer treatment half-time talk – the 2^nd half exploded into action. Full credit to the team to roar back with 2 goals from Danny Healy and 1 from David Sheerin to bring us back to 6-4. Some dubious off-side decisions allowed Park back into the game until Sean McGrath scored a Beckham-esque free kick (Google: England –Greece 2006!) to bring us back to 7-5. Athletic still had a handful of chances to score more but just didn’t get the rub of the green. Man of the Match and worthy Captain went to Danny Healy for leading the charge. Gold Stars to Cillian O’Regan, Dylan Trant, Brendan Cronin and goalkeeper Darragh Curran and a round of applause to the rest of the team for a gutsy 2^nd half display.  

Under 12 Premier League
Killarney Athletic 1 Killorglin 0
With this our first outing in 6 weeks we were slow out of the blocks and never really got going. We made heavy work of it and only for some very poor finishing and good defensive play by killorglin the score line would have been more than 1-0. Adam O'Shea scored half way through the first half, but we were unable to add to it. Best for Athletic on the day were Keith Maloney, Michael Owen Buckley and Man of the Match Lee O'Donoghue.