u12s visit Croke Park

Wednesday, April 7, 2010
CUSHENDUN UNBEATEN AT CROKE
Cushendun u.12 's scored two emphatic victories at Croke park today.
In the first game we faced a tough challenge from Gort na Mona. Our fellows seemed to suffering from nerves from the start and hit a succesion of wides. The back line defended the Hill 16 goals superbly with James Morgan in top form.Connor Bannon and Gerard O Hara held the line very well and Leo made some great clearances. The game was scoreless with about 6 minutes to go when Conor Mc Hugh won a free in front of the Hogan Stand. He sent the resulting free straight over the Canal End goals to give us a slender lead. Oggy and David Kilgore piled the pressure on the Gorts defence ,Jack Mc Kay and Aiden Dunne forced a couple of great saves from the Gort's keeper.Hugo Mc Keegan and Patsy Mc Auley came off the bench to replace Aiden Dunne and Michael Convery who were running out of  steam, but we still couldnt break down the Gort na mona defence. At last the final whistle went and Cushendun secured their first ever Croke Park victory.
Next up was our old foes, Rasharkin.
We made a few tactical switches dropping Mc Hugh into defence and playing Leo on the edge of the square. We started very brightly and Leo soon found the net with a pile driver.This set us up for convincing win. once again the defence kept the Rasharkin attack at Bay James had only a couple of saves to make thanks to the good work and tight marking from the two Conor's,Gerard and Harry. David Kilgore and Jack played fantastically in this game and did alot of hard work with Oggy .Patsy and MichaelC narrowly missed from frees but our forwards had cut loose and we had Rasharkin on the ropes.Once again we introduced our subs and we managed to get the young Thomas Scally on to get a bit of the Croke Park experience. He linked up well with Aiden and kept the pressure on the Rasharkin goal.
when the final whistle blew the boys all shook hands and Sean McKendry congratulated the team on their performance.
Before heading home we went in to view the changing rooms etc and have a look around the stadium. One other remarkable feat worthy of mention was hotshot Blute recording a speed of 115 on the speedcage in the warm up area.
A great day was had by all, thanks to the club for funding us and a special word of thanks to our young supporters, Sean,Katie and John V.
A video of the day will soon be available thanks to Liam Mulholland. finally, thanks to Mark Scally for being our refereefor the day.
Well done lads , you did the Club proud.