Published: Wednesday, 11th November, 2009 4:50pm

Villa Demons too strong for young Willow outfit

A hugely entertaining contest was played out at Willow Park on Saturday morning as Temple Villa Demons managed to overcome an extremely young Willow Park side who put in a heartening performance that certainly bodes well for the future.

The home outfit fielded a team packed with seven-year-olds but they defied the age difference by playing some really impressive passing football and making a physically stronger Temple Villa work very hard for the victory.

Temple Villa also had a better cutting edge in the attacking sector of the field and this proved decisive when it came to the final scoreline, but one shouldn't let the final result cloud judgement of this affair, as Willow gave as good as they got for vast spells of the three 15 minutes periods and can be suitably satisfied with their contribution to a very enjoyable game of football.

The opening opportunity of the game brought about the first goal after six minutes when Sean Scanlon burst through the Willow defence, which was itself brilliantly marshalled all day by Eamon Martin, and pushed the ball neatly past Willow netminder Tommy Stephens.

Willow reacted well and were level within two minutes as Shane Coffey, a little livewire in the home side's attack, produced a superb solo run and strike to equalise.

Coffey almost put his side in front a minute later but was eventually crowded out inside the Temple Villa penalty area by Cillian Carroll and Oisin Ryan.

Chances were coming quickly and up the other end Hugh Owens was fractionally wide with a fine strike.

Owens also played a key role in Villa's second goal in the ninth minute when he neatly set up Scanlon for his second of the contest.

Coffey was persistently causing problems for the Villa defence and was particularly unlucky not to score following an impressive jinking run which took him past a couple of visiting defenders.

The away side went 3-1 up just before the end of the first third when Oisin Ryan skipped past a couple of Willow challenges before planting the ball past Stephens.

It could have been worse for Willow only seconds later but Stephens did exceptionally well to race from his goal and deny Jason Gormley.

Gormley was also at the heart of the action upon the restart but his long range drive was soundly held by replacement goalkeeper Marco Gajic.

The rest of the second period belonged to Willow though, with Sean Claffey, Eamon Martin and Shane Coffey all threatening to pull the deficit back to a single goal.

Indeed, Martin was extremely unfortunate not to score when his long distance drive took a wicked deflection off a Villa defender before spinning narrowly wide.

Willow also went close to getting back in the contest in the 34th minute but both Martin and Claffey were denied by some good goalkeeping and resolute defending.

Willow's brave effort was more or less put to bed when Gormley assisted Joe Kincaid to put the tie well and truly out of Willow's reach with nine minutes remaining.

There was still time for Willow defender Claffey to produce a wonderful goalmouth clearance to prevent the scoreline increasing.

Temple Villa's undoubtedly superior physical presence meant Willow Park would always find the going tough as the game progressed but both side's deserve great applause for serving up one of the best games at this level so far this season.

Willow Park: Tommy Stephens, Glen Byrne, Shane Coffey, Adam O'Brien, Robert O'Brien, Ryan Connelly, Rafael Salala, Eamon Martin, Sean Claffey, Luka Gajic, Marko Gajic, Brian Hughes.

Temple Villa: Daniel Ennis, Hugh Owens, Dean Kearney, Cillian Carroll, Oisin Ryan, Sean Scanlon, Liam Doyle, Jason Gormley, Joe Kincaid.