U10 Castledawson 9-a-side Tournament
Monday, September 14, 2009
The Kickhams Under 10 footballers travelled to Castledawson on Saturday 12 September to compete in the annual 9 a side tournament. We were in competition with a range of teams from Derry & Antrim & were drawn in a group of 4 teams along with Ballinderry, Moneyglass & Foreglen.
Our first match was against Ballinderry. We expected a tough game as we had played them earlier in the season, narrowly defeating them after a good struggle. However on this occasion we were well ready for the challenge, got a few early scores which seemed to unsettle Ballinderry & we ran out easy winners.
In our second game against Moneyglass we again started strongly but Moneyglass proved to be more difficult opponents & put us under some pressure early in the second half. We weathered the storm well & finished out the game with some good scores to record a second victory.
In our third & final group game we met a Foreglen team we had never played before. Despite being a smaller & younger team than us, they proved to be worthy opponents before we eventually pulled away to victory. This result left us group winners facing Moneymore in the semi final
We knew from watching them in the group stages that Moneymore were a physically strong & highly motivated team. After soaking up some early pressure the young Kickhams broke loose in the second quarter to score some superb goals which really killed off the Moneymore challenge before half time. This excellent victory set us up with a final against our neighbours Cargin who had beaten Moneyglass in the other semi final
We had played Cargin earlier this year & we knew they would be difficult opponents. However this is a strong Kickhams outfit who have risen to every challenge they have faced this year & the final against Cargin proved no different. After a tight first half, Creggan hit 3 goals early in the second half to emerge victorious & lift the trophy.
This was a superb day for this young Kickhams team who have put in many hours of work on the training ground to develop their individual & teamwork skills. From a mentors viewpoint it was particularly pleasing to hear our Castledawson hosts compliment our players on their impeccable behaviour on the day & the style in which they achieved their tournament victory. This is a great group of young players & to give you an idea of the level of performance they put in last Saturday, just look at the scoring statistics – in the 5 games played they scored 35 goals & 25 points while conceding only 5 goals & 1 point.
The young Kickhams were represented on the day by Damon Kelly, Liam McCann, Matthew Rodgers, Eoin McAuley, Aidan McAuley, Dermot Carey, Liam Quinn, Tiarnan (Canavan) McAteer, Kealan McCann, Mark Mulholland, Sean Bateson & our captain Kevin Small who capped a memorable day by also lifting the player of the tournament award.
Match report kindly supplied by Jim Rodgers