McConnell's strike continues Willow Park's unbeaten start to season

KILKENNY junior football kingpins Evergreen must be well and truly sick of the sight of Athlone powerhouses Willow Park. For the second season running, Willow Park eliminated a highly-rated Evergreen outfit from the LFA Junior Cup, as Mark McConnell's second half goal sealed a crucial victory for Tony O'Sullivan's men at Athlone IT on Sunday afternoon (the game having to be switched to Athlone IT's all-weather surface due to the inclement weather conditions over the weekend). Ironically, when Willow Park travelled to Kilkenny to face Evergreen in last year's competition, the final scoreline was also 2-1 in the Athlone team's favour. Unbeaten in all competitions so far this season, Willow Park really fancy a good cup run in either or both the LFA Junior Cup and FAI Junior Cup, but they also knew Evergreen posed a considerable threat to their future involvement in this season's competition. Willow now have great strength in depth though, been able to afford leaving the likes of Brian Frawley, Michael Harney and Jimmy Mullally on the substitutes bench, with experienced campaigners Colin Fortune and Ronan Frawley genuinely beefing up Willow's side and making them an even more fearsome proposition to the side which won a league and cup double on the local scene last season. Indeed, it was Colin Fortune - a former Athlone Town and Galway Utd midfielder - who gave the home side the perfect start in only the third minute when his in-swinging free kick slightly deceived visiting 'keeper Darren Burke and ended up finding the roof of the net. Fortune's ability and accuracy from set-pieces has been a crucial addition to Willow since he signed for Tony O'Sullivan earlier in the campaign and once again on Sunday the evidence of his deadliness from dead-balls was hugely apparent to all punters. Willow could have doubled their advantage shortly afterwards when Mark McConnell, who had a very impressive outing, set up Colm Hyland, playing in a forward role, but Hyland was off target with his effort. A physical and quite powerful Evergreen side were relying much on long balls and consistently sought the more direct approach to break down Willow's solid defence. Chances were extremely thin on the ground during the rest of the first half but Evergreen managed to pull themselves level in the 41st minute when Chris Whearty capitalised on a rare lapse in concentration in the Willow defence and his cross caused serious problems for Ian Bolger who could only palm the ball into the path of Graham O'Flaherty to score. However, Willow regrouped well during the half-time interval and proceeded to dominate much of the second half. Mark McConnell saw a decent strike blocked on the line by Mark Andrews and Willow were increasing the pressure on the away side. The visitors' eventually caved in just before the hour mark when Fortune played a delicate through ball into the path of McConnell and he showed good poise to slide the ball past the approaching Burke and give Willow a deserved lead. Despite Ian Bolger having to make one very good stop from Aidan Keenan, it was Willow who should have really added to the scoreline, with Colm Hyland guilty of missing a brilliant opportunity after McConnell won a crunching tackle and then supplied a pinpoint cross for the striker, whose close range header went over the crossbar. Speaking after the game, manager Tony O'Sullivan said Willow Park were delighted to progress through to the third round. "It was excellent stuff from us for the majority of the game. Obviously we're disappointed with the manner of the goal we conceded but I thought we played very well for large spells and really should have got a few more goals. We missed a couple of really good scoring chances in the second half but thankfully we had enough about us to stay in front. Evergreen are a very decent side and it's a fair achievement to beat them twice in two years. But we have high ambitions and want to keep progressing further in this competition," said O'Sullivan. Meanwhile, Willow Park will play Clara Town in the third round of the FAI Junior Cup after the draw was made last weekend. Willow Park: Ian Bolger; Robert Shine, Peter Sherlock, Ronan Frawley, Earl Gaylard, Colin Fortune, Mark McConnell, Aidan Hyland, Colm Hyland, Benny Magennis, Gary McHugh. Subs: Brian Frawley for A. Hyland (80 mins). Evergreen: Darren Burke; Matthew Wong, Robert Quan, Mark Andrews, Michael Cashin, Brian Jordan, Mark Cashin, Graham O'Flaherty, Aidan Keenan, Niall Andrews, Chris Whearty. Referee: Adrian Martin.