Naas afc v Clane utd
On a mild, but chilly Autumn Saturday morning, our U14 Naas AFC (Red) team took on Clane at home in the Major 2 division. Having recently played Clane away from home and ending up with a 2-2 draw, we had high hopes to try and go one better this time with a win. Unfortunately a combination of sickness, injury and other sport commitments meant that we were on the back foot with a squad selection dilemma before the ref even blew the first whistle.
Naas started off the sharper team and put the Clane keeper and defence under early pressure with some lovely combination moves between Luke Hickey and Frank Manka up front. Missing a couple of our usual central midfielders (Bobby Kennedy and Charlie Masterson), we switched things up and had Ben Coyne and James Power pulling the strings from the centre of the pitch alongside Riley Mulvaney and Harry Collins on the wings, things were looking up as we pushed for the opener.
Unfortunately when Frank had to come off after only 10 minutes due to injury, we lost some of the initial momentum up front and Clane started to put pressure on our makeshift defence. We reshuffled the pack and brought Lavr Rudko on for Frank, with Ben moving into a more attacking position and Lavr working alongside James in central midfield. With a big squad this season, we were always going to be making some early changes and on the 30 minute mark, Jayden Jomi came on for Riley at Left Midfield.
At the back for Naas, Donnacha Fitzsimons combined well with Riley on the left hand side, with Andrew Donegan holding the right-hand side tight behind Harry. For the first time this season, we were missing our usual two Centre Backs (Scott McGarr and Dylan Greene) so needed to draft in Scott Byrne and Lorcan Ryan to the central positions. Both Scott and Lorcan played a blinder as our stand-in central defenders and Clane could hardly find a way through the lock-tight defence. When Clane did eventually break through to goal, we had the always dependable Noah O'Keefe in goal - who made two massive double-saves from point-blank range close to the half-time whistle to keep the game at 0-0.
At half-time, we made some more changes and Ludovico Tavolieri swapped into goal for Noah, Fionn Nolan came on for Luke and Thady Phelan came on for Donnacha. The second half started with a similar pace and the half-time team talks seemed to have made the better difference for Clane as they quickly made a run through to outside the box and took a strong shot that nestled into the back of the Naas net to make it 0-1 to the visitors.
That goal conceded was the shot in the arm Naas needed however and we started to show more of the intensity and quick passing that we've seen in training over the last few weeks. Lavr was settling in really well to his central midfield role and played probably his best game of the season using his pace to get up and down the pitch helping both the defence and the attack. Midway through the second half, Lavr hit a sweet shot from outside the box and the noise from it hitting the crossbar could be heard from all along the sideline.
Naas had their confidence back now and with Frank giving the coaching team the green light to come back on after his early injury had cleared up for him, we pushed forward with intent and pressed the Clane backline with shots, one-two's and mazy runs into the box. One of these runs from Fionn led to him skipping past two defenders, to only then find himself hacked down in the box with a lazy tackle - penalty to Naas! Unfortunately, Fionn's hard-earned penalty shot was well saved by the Clane keeper and we had to look elsewhere for an equalizer.
With 20 minutes left on the clock we rang the changes again and brought on the half-injured Dylan at Centre Back and reshuffled the pack to provide more attacking outlets up front with Luke and Noah joining the attack while we searched for a goal. Unfortunately, the goal didn't come and as we probed the Clane defence, the referee bizarrely blew up for the final whistle with 4 minutes still left on the clock (yes, we had multiple coaches timing it to confirm!). Our (light) protests to the referee to play the last 4 minutes went unanswered and we had to settle for the loss in the end.
