St Brigids U12 Div 2 Versus Sarsfields

After last week’s opening league win our Division 2 squad faced a much stronger test when they travelled to Sarsfields. The hosts were much for the most part older, bigger and stronger with the majority of the St Brigids team in their first year at this level. Sarsfields started very strongly and it took some concentrated defence from James Turkington in goal, Ryan Austin, Oisin McDonnell and Peter Megarity to keep them to 1 point in the opening 5 minutes. In fact a St Brigids breakaway involving passes from Conor Mulgrew, Toirealach Brolly and  Lorcan McGurk led to a levelling score from Loachlain Quinn. The rest of the first half saw Sarsfields piling on the pressure. Our half back line was working very hard with strong tackles and blocks while Brolly and Conan McNicholl helped out defensively in this period. Goals did come for the hosts however and despite a strong finish which included chances for Patrick O’Hagan, Lorcan Burns and Liam Finnegan, the half time score was 3.7 to 0.1. At the start of the second half James O’Rourke, Conor O’Hagan and Eoin Graham were introduced and indeed St Brigids stated strongly. Excellent passages of play from Matt Smith, Hugo Leeson, Patrick Doran and Lorcan McGurk led to scores from Loachlain who bagged a goal with Toirealach  and Conan McNicholl pitching in with points. The second half display was much stronger all round, with more fight for the ball, strong tackles and blocks. The scores for the second period stood at 4 a piece. The final score was Sarsfields 5.9, St Brigids 1.4.