- OUR PARTNERS
All the spectators who were there on a beautiful sunny Saturday at Paddyshill were treated to a proper cup cracker by the u14Bs - and could celebrate with a hard fought 3-2 extra time win for Porto in the end!
We started late, and a bit slowly – with a physically imposing Lucan Utd team looking to spread the ball wide and push on in the early stages. Their right winger was causing us problems, and Luc Bissett had to work seriously hard to keep him under wraps. At one point in the first half, he managed to escape and fire a shot into the top corner. Lucan kept the pressure on, but we retained our composure at the back, led by Sam Murphy, and Trystan O’Donoghue in goals was a commanding presence whenever they broke through. Whenever we got on the ball, played our passing game and got the ball wide, we looked like we could create chances.
We turned round 1-0 down, but almost immediately equalised, our pressure paying dividends, when Aaryan Kumar (just on as a sub) placed home a tidy finish from a ball in from the left hand side. Game on! Lucan kept on pushing, and had a few close things, but Trystan made a number of great saves – and Porto continued to look dangerous on the break. Eventually, Lucan enjoyed the break of a ball in the area, and managed to poke one home.
Porto refused to give up, and with just a few minutes left, Jamie Ramage was set free on the left by some lovely passing and ran on to slot past the keeper to push us into extra time. Both sides were battling on through the tiredness, and Lucan hit the post at one point, but in the end it was to be Porto who took the win, when Jamie again battled free down the left and beat the keeper to start the fans (and coach!!) celebrating on the sidelines.
A brilliant battling performance by all the lads, with lots of great performances, but the one who stood out as MOTM was Luc Bisset.
