The u10 panel attended the Carryduff Peter Cassidy Memorial Tournament on 14 June 2014 in great numbers. The boys played two teams – one in the Cup Competition and one in the Shield Competition. The boys knew the group draw for each team in advance of the tournament.
The Cup team played against Watty Grahams Maghera; Bredagh; and Erin’s Own Lavey. They had not played against Watty Grahams before Saturday. They had played a challenge match earlier in the year against Bredagh, which they won. However, the strongest memories were of the challenge match they played against Lavey at the end of 2012, when they travelled to the Lavey indoor pitch as u8s – where they were disappointed with losing that game. The boys had the opportunity of watching Lavey defeat Breadgh 0-12 to 0-1 in the first match in their group. They then played Watty Grahams, winning 0-4 to 0-2; immediately followed by their game against Bredagh, which they won 0-6 to 0-2. As this competition was open to all boys born after 1 July 2003 Thomas O’Loan, Garrett Gilleece and Niall Murtagh were all eligible to play.
The final game of the morning was against Lavey, who were probably favourites going into the game, but within moments of the throw-in the St Brigid’s boys dominated in all areas of the pitch. They won a hard fought match 0-5 to 0-3, finishing top of their group and qualifying for the Peter Cassidy Memorial Cup Semi-Finals. The game started with some friendly exchanges between the boys – Callum Downey from Lavey asking the boys if they knew his granda, Frank McGurk. But despite the Lavey players defending in numbers the St Brigids boys were quicker to the ball and more accurate in taking their scores.
The boys met Wolfe Tones Bellaghy in the semi-final, the team they had played in the St Galls May Day Tournament last month. Unfortunately there was a period of about four minutes when Bellaghy dominated the play and it was those scores that made the difference to the outcome for St Brigids on this occasion. However, there was a play-off between Carryduff and St Brigids for runner-up in the competition and the boys played valiantly, despite their disappointment in losing the semi-final. Although, despite the prayers from the sideline, the boys were narrowly defeated by Carryduff. Bellaghy went on to beat Burren to win the Cup.
