U14 League 19th April 2023 – Piltown v Carrickshock

Piltown Vs Carrickshock U14 League 19 April 23

by Jason O’Brien, Piltown PRO

On a beautiful Wednesday evening, Carrickshock travelled over the hill and down to us to take on our U14s.

Piltown played with the strong breeze in the first half towards the Belline House end.

And the home side started as strong as the breeze with Siobhan Aylward pouncing onto the rebound from a long range Grace Farrell shot after it was saved by Gráinne O’Shea in the Shocks goal after 3mins.

Two minutes later the green flag was raised beside Gráinne again as Ruby Norris broke down the left wing, turned for goal, and shot mid hight to the left.

It was a whirlwind start for the home side, and the visitors were struggling for scores despite the best efforts of Emer Rossiter, Grace Lehart and Katie O’Shea.

It was turning into a battle for possession between the two 45 yard lines, as Piltown seemed to have gotten the match ups correct. This was clear in midfield with Ruby Norris and Rachel Coady battling away and the half forwards where Kate Fogarty was working especially hard, and the half back line, Saoirse Barry and Clodagh McCarthy battled hard.

Because of the battle for the upper hand going on, scores were hard to come by, and once again it was Ruby that got the third goal of the half from out wide on the wing.

That seemed to kick-start the forwards, and also the game, back to life as Carrickshock then scored the next 3 points in the next 4minutes, before Ruby got a point from a free. The always reliable Grace Farrell got two points from play to close out the half with the score Piltown 3-03 Carrickshock 0-03.

With the breeze at their backs, you would expect the team in green to come back at Piltown, and they did. Amy O’Shea, with number 14 on her back, scored the next 2 points from placed balls, and then broke away from Kate Anthony and buried the ball to Rachel Tennyson left to reduce the lead to 4 points with ten mins left.

It looked like Shocks were building up a head of steam and were Piltown wobbling? Rachel pulled off a great save in the 52nd minute to deny Amy O’Shea as she went through on goal.

Once again it was Grace that steadied the ship for Piltown as she pointed a 45 and then another point from play.

Amy O’Shea scored another free in the 57th minute, and that was matched by Katie O’Shea to finish the scoring.

A four point victory for Piltown, and it was the right result on balance of play. A great performance all round from two evenly matched teams.

Full Time

Piltown 3-05 Carrickshock 1-07.