Boys U16 (2010) Major - Rathanghan

Back at the sports centre today looking to regain confidence after last weeks crushing defeat.

1st half

Naas begun with real intent and had lovely passages of passing , straight away looking like a completely different team .

With much better control of the midfield and front 3 looking really dangerous both teams pushed hard for an opener with great end to end football.

Rathanghan in fairness were closer to an opener with Xabi Gray making two goal line clearances . One with the head off the line and the 2nd with a slide tackle off the line (which was a good foot over the line ) but it’s who reacts fastest and Xabi didn’t give it up and played the refs whistle.

To make it worse for Rathanghan we then grabbed the opener . A sharp pass into the feet of Filip Frackowiak, he did a bergkamp style flick over his marker , ran onto the ball took on the central defenders and finished to the top right , excellent play by the forward.

1-0 at the break and a great half of football.

2nd half

Rathanghan desperate to get back in the game but for the first few minutes it looked closer to Naas doing it . Then we had adults on the opposing teams bench winding up and upsetting our right back and this resulted in altercations between parents on the touchline and took away from the match and focus of the team .

We got going again and an effort from rathanghan wasn’t closed quick enough and the equaliser looped over the keeper.

We rallied on and continued our good football but a silly foul in our box gave an unnecessary penalty to give rathanghan the lead 2-1 . No complaints from me WWF tackles in the box .

This didn’t hamper our attack and effort and with high press, we forced them into a pass back giving an indirect free kick in the box .

Kemple laid off to Frackowiak, with the opposition way too close tbh honest but got past them and the keeper to be headed off the line by the last man .

We gave great effort and went all out to score but were then caught on the break and went 3-1 down . Sucker punch

But the lads rallied and Frackowiak grabbed his 2nd just before the final whistle with a brilliant pass from Donncha Hickey setting him up for the finish 3-2 .

Best game for Donncha this season really great effort from him.

So all round really proud of the performance and effort from the lads , as last week was so crushing , I’m delighted by the reaction.

Really great game by all the team but

Special mentions for Naas

Gk Morgan Begley

Def Xabi Gray & Tom Hobbins

Mid Gavin Beirne & Conor Clerkin

Fwd Filip Frackowiak , Donncha Hickey

Just to highlight as I gave credit to last weeks ref when it was due . I have total opposite opinion of today’s ref Emmett fox

No offside calls , didn’t call genuine fouls , no protection for the lads especially from adults on the touchline and easily influenced by the opposition line . Terrible lazy ref , I didn’t lose the head as I was so happy with the lads effort to take away from it . (Same ref that was asleep when we drove to athy on a Friday night for game to be cancelled due to his no show)

Well done lads, keep up the hard work and wins will follow.