St. Paul’s vs Gaelcholaiste Carlow Senior Girls football
It was our senior girls’ second outing of the year in Ballykelly and they played a cracker of a game. Our girls got off to a flying start with two early goals, one from corner forward Chloe Connolly and the other from midfielder Emma Hyland. The girls had to fight very hard in the rough conditions with a very awkward strong wind blowing across the pitch. Carlow had made space and ran at our backline, but some great defending from our corner backs Christine Worrell and Orla Burke stopped Carlow from getting any easy scores. Also, some courageous goalkeeping from Abbie Talbot meant no goals were conceded throughout the whole game!
From the kick outs, smart running from the half back Naomi Ganiyu and captain Alana Dillon Baker meant that our forwards got quick and clean ball to play with. Half forwards Eimear Hanlon and Katie Walsh showed great skill and kicked seven excellent points between them. Although our girls had a comfortable lead, they didn’t take the foot off the pedal. Midfielder Amy Lacey gave a great long ball into corner forward Martha O’Reilly, who then gave a very well timed hand pass to the buccaneering Katie Walsh, who was bombing down the centre of the pitch. Katie beat two defenders and found the back of the net. St. Paul’s, looking favourites now to win had the lead at halftime with the score of 3-07 to 0-00.
Halftime substitutions improved the standard of football from our girls. Clodagh Colgan and Tori Maher were now in the forwards and this made life easier on the other girls as they made unselfish runs to help out the full forward line. As the space now started opening up, Katie Walsh took full advantage of every inch of that space and was rewarded with another two points. The runs made by Clodagh Colgan also paid off when she kicked two great points from the right hand side of the pitch. Substitutes Caitlin Flynn, Rebecca Murphy and Shannon Ransome were introduced to the backline very little ball reached the goals at all as they were relentless in putting pressure on the Carlow forwards.
As the heavens opened and the rain came pouring down, our girls still held onto all of the momentum they had. Two quick goals within minutes of each other from Katie Walsh and Eimear Hanlon sealed the fate of the Carlow team. As the match drew to an end and players started to get tired Tori Maher pulled one out of the bag putting the ball high and straight between the posts from a good 30 yards out. Just as the girls thought all of their work was done, Carlow worked the ball up the pitch scoring their first and only point of the game.
The final whistle blew and the coach Ms. Donnellan was very pleased with her team’s performance. Final score was St. Paul’s 5-13 to Carlow’s 0-01.
Scorers; Chloe Connolly 0-01, Emma Hyland 1-00, Katie Walsh 2-04, Eimear Hanlon 1-05, Clodagh Colgan 0-02, Tori Maher 0-01.
We also would like to wish Chloe Kelly a speedy recovery after she had surgery after breaking her nose playing football with her club and we hope she’s back playing again soon.
