Crucial goals give Wexford the edge over Longford girls
On Saturday last the Longford U-14 girls contested the first round of the Leinster U-14 Championship when they played Wexford at Pearse Park.
The Longford girls were first to score when St. Helen's player Emma Farrelly took a beautiful point in full flight in the fifth minute. However Wexford playing with a strong breeze cancelled this out in the eight minute with a point from their most dangerous corner forward Emer Lacey and the same girl added two more points to put the visitors 0-3 to 0-1 ahead with fifteen minutes of the first half gone.
Longford were getting it hard to get the ball to the inside forwards and moved Kerri Harmon out to midfield and this improved the game for the home team. Shauna McCormack was unlucky not to have the ball in the net only for Wexford to clear the danger after her shot rebounded off a Wexford back.
With ten minutes to go to half-time the Wexford girls hit a purple patch and had the ball in the net no less than three times with a penalty converted by Leanne Codd and an unfortunate high ball that went in off the crossbar and off the back of Longford goalkeeper Shannon Woods. Then a mix up with the resulting kick out ended in the opportunist Emer Lacey finishing to the net and the half-time whistle could not come soon enough for the Longford girls who went in at the break 3-5 to 0-1 behind.
However the home team reappeared for the second half and went about reducing the Wexford 13 point lead. The Longford girls have to be admired for their commitment and guts and Mandy Cassidy, Emer Heaney and Ellie Collum really got going and Longford found the Wexford net with ten minutes gone on the changeover through Emma Farrelly.
Kerri Harmon and Claire Farrell added two points each and with twenty minutes gone the score read 3-5 to 1-5 but Longford lapsed in concentration in defence and Wexford had the ball in the net in the 55th minute to restore a 9 point lead.
Longford found the net again with Kerri Harmon and added three more points while Wexford got their last goal in injury time. This is by no means a true reflection of the final score and the girls travel to Offaly next Saturday and with another away game against Wicklow on April 10 Longford could very well end up contesting the knockout stages of the competition against the Wexford girls later on.
Best for the gallant losers were Shannon Woods, Ciara Flynn, Emer Heaney and Maeve O'Reilly in defence; Mandy Cassidy and Ellie Collum at midfield and Kerri Harmon, Emma Farrelly, Claire Farrell, Shauna McCormack in the forward line.
LONGFORD: S. Woods, M. Cox, C. Flynn, R. Duffy, E. Collum, E. Heaney, M.O'Reilly, M. Cassidy, C. Farrell, S. Hughes, K. Harmon, L. Gregg, L. Burke, E. Farrelly, S. McCormack.
Subs:- A McKeon, L Guinan, S O'Meara, J Duncan, A Noonan and N Feeney.
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Weather for Longford, Ireland
Tuesday 22 May 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 11 C to 19 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: South
Tomorrow
Sunny spells
Temperature: 9 C to 19 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: South
