Round Tower 3-3 Kilmacud Crokes 2-5
The Under 15 Camógs came out victorious in a thriller at the death at the Community Centre on Sunday. In a match full of tension and nerves, where there was a goal for either team in second half injury time, the Towers girls maintained their 100% league record.
The game was full of battles all throughout the field and there was no way that Towers were going to have it all their own way like they did in the reverse fixture.
Kilmacud opened the scoring after 10 minutes with an amazing catch from one of their forwards who then struck it sweetly over the bar. This was quickly equalised by a Kate Whelan free after Holly Gregg was fouled just outside the 20 meter line. From the resultant puck out Whelan won the ball and pointed again and it seemed that Towers were up and running. In fact they could have been further ahead except for a number of saves by the Kilmacud keeper with Gregg, Whelan and Aoife Kennedy all having saves made.
A breakaway move then by Crokes lead to the game’s first goal when a follow up to a number of saves by Karla Meehan and Abbie Maher on the Towers line was driven low to the net. Again Towers came back and a great run and low shot by Holly to the net put Towers back up a point and just before half time great work by Roisin Flavin who carried the ball 20 meters before being fouled should have led to another Towers point, but the resultant free from Kate struck the upright. Half Time 1-2 to 1-1.
Usually Towers in this situation would start to pull away and it seemed this would be the case when Kate Whelan’s speculative shot from 40 meters took a cruel bounce past the Crokes’ keeper to the back of the net. But Kilmacud really dug deep and in the next 15 minutes scored 4 unanswered points. Some great work from Lucy Cullen when she soloed the ball 40 meters and struck over the bar from 30 meters seemed to give us a bit of breathing space, but Towers had to soak up a huge amount of pressure, with great defensive work by Megan Hoyte, Soairse Ng and Aoife Kelly and some smart saves from Meehan in the Tower’s goal just about keeping us ahead.
Then with the game ebbing into injury time, Crokes struck with another goal and it looked to have given them a late victory and indeed Crokes won the resultant puck and almost added to their slender lead and it took a long clearance from Megan to relieve the pressure. Megan found Kate Whelan who turned her player and carried the ball before releasing Holly who then hit a beautifully low shot to give Towers the victory at the death.
When Siobhan Gleeson ran 40 metres to chase down and dispossess another Crokes attack, the referee then blew the final whistle and it was with relief that Towers could claim another victory.
