O’Mahonys U14s heading for Feile

By Club

February-8-2016

Following on the success of this group of players late in 2015, our under 14 footballers continued show their long awaited promise today as they have won their way out of Feile Group B in Meath. Now we can all look forward to them representing the county later in the year at national level in Feile.

It started on Saturday with two matches which the O’Mahonys team won comfortably. The first match was against Na Fianna which O’Mahonys won 05-14 to 00-01. The second match was against Walterstown and again O’Mahonys dominated from the start and saw Walterstown off 4-2 : 6-10 O’Mahony’s.

This meant that the U14 were back in Dunganny in the Semi-final on Sunday morning against St Cuthbert’s. Starting without Darragh Murphy who had tremendous games on Saturday, the game opened with O’Mahonys getting the first goal 50 seconds at the opening from Cian Murtagh who went on to score 2-2. The points kept stacking up and at the end of the first half O’Mahonys were 4-6 to 1 point ahead. Unfortunately O’Mahonys found themselves a man down late in the first half but the rest of the team rallied together and even with a man down in true O’Mahony’s spirit finished the game 04-09 to 0-5 with scores from play by Kean Murtagh, Shane McCarthy, Cian King, Breen Yourell and Rhys Callan. There were many inspirational performances with Evan Brady, Dan McEvoy, Sam Formosa, determined in securing possession and delivering inch perfect passes to the supporting runs of Fionn Fitzsimons, Eoin Hughes-McGuinness and Tom McDonagh. This put us in the final against Seneschalstown.

It took the O’Mahonys team a couple of minutes for Kean Murtagh to go on the score board with a beautiful chip over the goalie to put O’Mahonys in front by a goal followed soon after with another goal from Shane McCarthy to make it 2-0 to 0-0. However a few minutes later Seneschalstown was awarded a penalty and put the score to 2-0 to 1-0.
This did not demoralise the O’Mahony’s team who with the help of the outstanding Niall Devlin in goals kept them in the game and finished the first half 3-3 to 1-0. The policy of rotating subs allowed the excellent Jack Cahill, Kevin Ryan and Owen Murphy to showcase their talents and contribute really well to the games. Playing against the wind O’Mahonys struggled a bit in the second half and Seneschalstown managed a return to 2-1 from frees. Ben Heskin and Niall Gorman stood strong and firm with their teammates in defence facing into a very strong and biting wind to ensure O’Mahony’s Under 14 booked their place in Feile 2016.

Bradlee Connor really came into his own in this period with lung busting runs and defense which helped O’Mahonys keep their act together. The lads managed to secure another goal five minutes from the end from play to finish 4-3 to 2-1 with scores from Cian Murtagh, Rhys Callan Shane McCarthy and Mikey Leddy.

As Captain Rhys Callan accepted the cup on behalf of O’Mahonys, he thanked the mentors, team and officials in his acceptance speech.

It is a brilliant start to 2016 and the boys are all fired up to go and represent Meath in June and make O’Mahonys proud whatever the outcome.

Panel: Ben Heskin, Cian King, Evan Brady, Jack Cahill, Kean Murtagh, Kevin Ryan, Niall Devlin, Rhys Callan, Sam Formosa, Shane McCarthy, Owen Murphy, Darragh Connell, Fionn Fitzsimons, Eoin Hughes-Magennis, Bradlee Connor, Michael Leddy, Thomas Gill McDonagh, Breen Yourell, Dan McEvoy, Darragh Murphy.
Mentors: Fino Murtagh (Coach), Paud Fitzsimons, Marco Formosa, Gordon McCarthy, Darren Yourell, Mick McDonagh,