Brilliant ADSL triumph in the Umbro Cup

The ADSL Under-12 Development Academy celebrated a magnificent fortnight when they won the Umbro Cup in Galway last Saturday to add to the Welsh Challenge Cup won in the previous week. It was a great week in Galway for the ADSL with the Under-12 Academy remaining unbeaten all week and did not concede a single goal in regular play on the way to lifting the Umbro Under 13 Club Cup. The ADSL won the final on Saturday beating Dungannon Swifts from Northern Ireland 5-4 in a penalty shoot-out after a 0-0 draw in regulation time to crown two weeks of intense football. The ADSL Academy kicked off their group games with a 1-0 win over the Galway Schoolboy League courtesy of an early Jamie McBride goal. In truth it looked that the ADSL would win this one, but a host of missed chances and a late Galway rally saw them hanging on a bit at the end, but it was still a good win to start. The ADSL followed that up on Wednesday evening with a 4-0 win over the North Tipperary Schoolboy League. Patrick Sleator scored two good goals in the first half. The excellent Conor Payne added a good third in the second half while an own goal completed the scoring. The ADSL made sure of a semi-final spot with their best performance of the week in beating Lisburn Distillery from Northern Ireland 2-0 on Thursday lunchtime. This was a great display of precision passing and movement that thrilled a large crowd. Jamie McBride scored after just six minutes and after that there was little holding a rampant ADSL. The second goal was an own goal, but came at the end of a quite sublime passing movement. In Friday's semi-final the ADSL made little of the driving wind and torrential rain to easily beat Salthill Devon 4-0. Not for the first time this week the ADSL got off to a great start when the flying Colin Cotton cut in from the left to blast the ball into the bottom corner. Colin Cotton made it 2-0 before half-time when he demonstrated great opportunism in spotting the keeper off his line for an excellent goal. Conor Payne made it 3-0 when he stabbed the ball home from close range following a well worked corner routine. Cathal Stacey then made it 4-0 when he fired home the goal of the game with a thunderbolt of a free kick to secure a place in the final. In that final the ADSL played Dungannon Swifts. Neither side reproduced in the final the good form that got them there in what was a tight and tense stop start affair. The ADSL twice had reason to be thankful to their keeper Colm Murray with two good first-half fetches but the ADSL settled thereafter but were happy to turn around scoreless but now with the wind at their backs. The ADSL owned the ball for much of the second half and had the better chances, but despite a few near misses the game ended scoreless and with no extra-time went straight to a penalty shoot-out. Dungannon went first and scored, but Ciaran McGuinness responded for the ADSL for 1-1. The two sides then traded successful spot kicks with a very high standard with Conor Payne, Patrick Sleator and Jamie McBride netting for the ADSL to make it all square at 4-4 after four rounds of penalties. Then big Colm Murray who had not conceded a goal all week got down low to his left to quite brilliantly save the fifth Dungannon penalty. It was all down to the last ADSL penalty and up stepped Cathal Stacey, as cool as you like, to stroke the ball into the bottom right corner for a 5-4 win to be crowned Under-13 Umbro Galway Cup Champions. Further honour came the ADSL's way when AC Celtic player, Cathal Stacey, was named Player-of-the-Tournament. A great honour for Cathal which he was very quick to share with his team mates. It is a great achievement by the coaching and management team of Tony O'Sullivan, Fergal Nugent and Keith Reynolds and what a season it has been for Tony O'Sullivan who has been a trophy machine with five different Cups with Willow Park and the ADSL. And well done to this ADSL squad of Colm Murray, Conor Murray, Brian Stack who was just outstanding over two weeks, Shane Kelly, Eoin Ryan who was the ADSL's best player in the Umbro Cup Final, Patrick Sleator, Luke Carty, Aaron O'Neill, Stephen Connolly, the flying winger Colin Cotton, Conor Payne who had a brilliant week in Galway, Brandon Ryan, Cian Quinn, Jamie McBride, Ciaran McGuinness, Cathal Stacey and Ryan Gaffey who was unavailable for Galway but had a great Welsh trip.