Deegan Double Gives Tullamore Leg Up
Thursday, 2 February 2012
The Tullamore United Under 15 team which defeated Gallen in the Shield quarter final first leg last Saturday. TT55S
Tullamore Utd 2. Gallen 1.
LEAH Victoria Park played host last Saturday to this eagerly awaited clash between Gallen, who play their league football up in the Major Division, and Tullamore United who play Division One.
Neither squad have had a great start to the season but Tullamore came into this as underdogs but after a superb league win the previous week, the home side were spurred on somewhat.
Right from the whistle Tullamore went on the attack. Gallen reacted but a rock solid defence of Darren Hennessy, Sean Nolan, Bryan Pidgeon, Garreth Kelly and brother Aaron in goal continuosly broke down the visitors' attack.
The United midfield of Eoghan Geoghegan, Cormac Deegan, Steven Comiskey and Brendan Deering were a revelation! Again, rock solid.
Moving the ball to the forward line of Jordan Daly and Jack Dooley who ran the Gallen defence ragged and were unlucky not not to score a few goals.
In fact on another day a breath of wind would have carried two shots across the line!! But it was not to be and it remained scoreless at half time.
As the second half started everyone knew that this was going to be a pretty intense 40 minutes. And so it was! Tullamore again started strong. Thomas Digan and Joe Smyth were on with fresh legs and were in the thick of it straight away.
Again United were unlucky not to score but full credit to the Gallen keeper who despite being overworked at times, kept his team in the game.
But eventually United did indeed get their break and Cormac Deegan netted a superb goal.
United then kept the pressure on, pushing Gallen to the limit. Tullamore were playing as a unit and hunting another goal.
Emmett Burke in midfield was attacking and unlucky with a scorching shot on goal.Thomas, Bryan, Cormac, Brendan were all looking for number two and number two did indeed come, from the foot of Cormac again.
There were only minutes to go and Gallen scored from nowhere. It was an impotrant goal but was not enough to stop United as the referee blew the final whistle confirming a well deserved win for Tullamore in a great game of soccer.
Full credit to both teams for the manner in which the match was played. It was a great first leg, and there is all to play for in the second leg in Ferbane in mid February.
Subscribe to read full newspaper »
Send to a friend
Please complete the following form to inform a friend about this page.
