Salthill Devon girls through to semi-finals of U-14 Irish Cup

Date Published: 13-Jun-2011

Illies Celtic 1

Salthill Devon 1

The Salthill Devon U-14 girls’ travelled to Illies Celtic (Inishowen, Donegal) for the Irish Cup quarter-final in an effort to retain their Irish Cup crown from last year, and they were pushed all the way before emerging victorious on penalties.

The managing team of Richie Walsh and Seán Óg Dunleavy recognised the mammoth task having watched the Inishowen League win the Gaynor Cup (national inter-league title) just the weekend before with six squad members from Illies Celtic who performed well throughout the tournament.

The game began evenly with both sides demonstrating their calibre and chances on either side, Illies broke the deadlock after 20 minutes with a well place shot low into Caoimhe O’Reilly’s right from 14 yards out.

Devon heads never dropped, and with some of the former national squad winners (Evie Lowndes, Rebecca Rooney, Aoife Walsh, Róisín Jacob, Emily Naughton) leading the charge they applied the pressure to the home defence.

A superb passage of play resulted in Walsh, the best player on the day, collecting the ball on the right wing at the half way line and bringing the ball past several players to the end line where the cross was meet superbly by Sorcha Ní Bhraonáin to level the game in the 30th minute.

For most of the second half the game saw good passages of play from both sides, with Devon hitting the upright and O’Reilly doing enough in a one on one goal opportunity slide wide after a break by Illies. Extra time saw a similar pattern and the deadlock could not be broken.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Sentinel.