St Brigids Under 10 boys, despite only been given 24 notice, found themselves playing in the annual St Teresa’s Football tournament on Saturday 3rd September. It was a bright and fresh morning as the lads took to the field against their first opponents of the day, a strong and powerful Glenties side who had made trip from West Donegal that morning. The Donegal gaels’ travels hadn’t tired them out and the took the game to St Brigids straight from the throw in. The game was very close with both teams very evenly matched, the defences on both sides came out on top with Shay Campbell and young Ronan Agnew playing at full back snuffing out everything that came down the flanks. The match finished with only three scores, thankfully two of those were for St Brigids and they won a very entertaining game 0-2 to 0-1.
Next up was the hosts St Teresas, this game wasn’t played at the same intensity as the previous as the first game, and the St Brigids boys were a bit sluggish in the first half, but came back strongly in the second half, which included a great goal started by centre half Callum Webb who cleverly found space, and received a ball from the keeper evading a couple of tackles he played in Cian O’Donnell who finished clinically.
With two wins under their belts the lads faced North Belfast rivals St Endas, another nip and tuck game with the Malone lads starting out well, but being pegged back by a great goal from St Endas. The half time team talk did the trick, as the St Brigids lads came out all guns blazing. Eoin Brown and Paul Bradley, took control of the middle of the park, Paul topped it off with a super goal from distance, the result was never in doubt after that.
With three wins out of three, St Brigids topped their group and were drawn against another Donegal team St Eunans “B”. Some great football from the forwards in this games including some well taken scores from Jack McGurk, Paddy McKay and young Toirealach Brolly, meant this games was well won and the boys were into the Semi Final.
The draw threw up an interesting fixture next, where the lads had to play the “A” squad from St Eunans, who at this stage had yet to concede a score in the competition. St Brigids lads knew they had to up their game and indeed they did, despite a couple of injuries the lads battled through two hard halves of football. Each one of them played out of their skin, Thomas McCarney, who had been excellent in goals all day, pulled off a number of fantastic saves to keep the team in the game, and also played some intelligent balls out of defence to let the outfield players retain possession. Ben Doherty made a number of vital blocks in this game, including one where he tracked backed from square to close down a St Eunans player just about put a ball over the posts. It was so tight at the final whistle no one was quite sure if the there was a winner, however the referee confirmed it was St Brigids by a single score.
Next up was the final and by a twist of fate, it turned out to be a rerun of the first games, St Brigids vs Glenties. The team from Donegal didn’t need the sideline wild encouragement from their mentor, as the set about settling the score from early in the day. The day seemed to taking it’s toll on the south Belfast boys, as despite bright a bright start to the game they were soon put under pressure and conceded a number of scores. The half time whistle couldn’t have come quicker as the St Brigids lads found themselves seven points off the Donegal team. The tie and the title seemed dead and buried at this point in time, but each lad committed they would try their hardest to claw this back, and they started the second half devastating fashion. Two quick goals meant it was a one point game once again, the game went from end to end, and two minutes from full time St Brigids scored another goal, the St Brigids lads were in front for the first time in the game. Glenties then had to throw everyone forward and period of intense tackling from the boys in blue to keep them out, resulted in a free against them. Glenties needed two points and needed to go for goals, and in the final minute of the game a quick free and a speculative shot found it’s way into the net. Heartbreak for the St Brigids boys, they tried in vain to snatch reply but the ref blew the game up, it was not to be. A galant performance from this bunch of talented young lads.
Well done to Glenties, and a big thanks to our host St Teresa’s who ran an excellant event and looked after us well.
