Sylvesters advance to Leinster Final
- Oct 13,2011
A SECOND successive huge win has seen St Sylveter’s ladies advance to the Leinster junior championship final in rip-roaring fashion. They swept aside Clara by 4-10 to 0-1 in front of a huge crowd in Offaly, which included former Taoiseach Brian Cowen.
It leaves the club on the verge of a second Leinster junior title in two years, following the club’s hurlers victory in 2009.
Standing in their way are Kildare champions, St Laurence’s, who have been in similarly inspired form, kicking 17 goals in their three knock-out matches in Leinster to date. And manager Brian Sullivan knows his side will be in a major battle in the final.
"We’ve been able to find out a bit about them, a bit of commentary in the Kildare media," he told GazetteSport.
"They have been racking up big scores, 3-14 to 1-10 in the semi-final, but prior to that they have got 14 goals in their other two matches. They have a few inter-county players in the Kildare senior and minor team also, so we’ll up against it.
"Any team that is racking up those scores has strong forwards. But we’ll be confident. We couldn’t have asked for any better than conceding only four points in a quarter and semi-final. Certainly, St Anne’s in the first round was the toughest one but we feel more prepared now, fitter and playing good football. We’re getting the big scorelines but the performances deserve them."
He saw his side once again get off to a magnificent start, scoring 1-4 in the opening seven minutes with Emer Treacy recovering from an eye injury to take her place in the starting team and net early on. Nicole Owens, Sinead Aherne and Niamh McEvoy also weighed during that early spell and, despite a couple of sin-binnings, Syl’s powered clear with Treacy grabbing her second goal and Owens also finding the net for a 3-6 to 0-0 half-time lead.
Despite being down to 13 players for the first five minutes of the second half, the Malahide side cleared the bar three more times to well and truly confirm the win.
They did have to ride their luck at times as Aimee Hazley – another to reach fitness in time to play – covered well from full-back to clear off the line twice, before Owens’ second goal rubber-stamped the win.
Reacting to the nature of the game, Sullivan added: "We didn’t know what we were going into or know an awful lot about them. They were a strong physical team and, with the crowd there, you would swear it was an inter-county team.
"To be honest, the game wasn’t as lop-sided as it looks from the scoreboard. Clara had a good bit of possession, but they didn’t have scoring forwards like we had, and missed a few soft chances. But we were a level ahead of them with regard to our movement of the ball and we have stepped up our performance every time we have gone out."
Credit: Stephen Findlater/Gazette Group of Newspapers
