Soccer ADSL News

The weather played havoc with the ADSL programme over the past weekend and in those games that did go ahead saw teams depleted mostly by reason of the school mid-term break. Still there was a good number of games and a number of outstanding results in the Connaught Cup for some ADSL sides. Willow under-14's march on Willow Park under-14's defied awful weather and two torrential downpours in the first half alone to turn on the style to romp into the next round of the Connaught Cup with a performance every bit as convincing as an emphatic over Castlerea Celtic as the 7-0 scoreline might suggest. Willow were in total control almost from the first whistle and passed the ball and retained possession in conditions that just did not seem possible. Aidey Byrne gave Willow a deserved lead when he held his composure to pass the ball beyond the big keeper to the side of the net. Aaron Watts then scored a good second just as the floodgates literally opened. Mary Halligan then scored a screamer for 3-0 firing the ball into the top corner from an easy 25 yards. Then just before half-time Al-Amin Sanusi applied the finish to Aidey Byrne's cross. Into the second half Willow gave an exhibition of quality football. Andy Nevin just tormented the Castlerea defence and it came as no great surprise when Willow added a fifth goal. Again it was a spectacular effort from Mark Halligan as he superbly lobbed the big keeper from distance for 5-0. Sam Omukoro then made it 6-0 before Nicky Kelly rounded off a good overall performance from him to complete the scoring for a very emphatic Willow win. Battling Ballinasloe Ballinasloe Town showed a great fighting spirit in the under-12 Connaught Cup to advance to the next round. Playing away against a decent Ballinrobe Town side it looked all up as the Mayo side led 2-0. But Ballinasloe showed great spirit and character to battle back. Goals from Conor Payne and Jordan O'Leary tied up the scores at 2-2, but Ballinasloe were not happy with that and in a super finish Shane Kelly set up Conor Payne to score an amazing winner to crown a quite amazing fight back and see another ADSL side advance in the Connaught Cup. Match of the Day Match of the Day and maybe even Match of the Season was the Under-10 Division North meeting of Ballinasloe and Willow Park on the Willow Astro Turf on Saturday morning. This was a 9 goal thriller with Willow coming from four down to snatch an incredible and dramatic win. Early on it was all Ballinasloe. Conor Layng gave the visitors a two goal lead with two super goals, one better than the other. John Cawley then made it 3-0 with a clever lob and when John got his second goal to make it 4-0 it looked that Ballinasloe had done enough. When Brendan Martin got one back for Willow it looked like a consolation score, but when Ben Troy made it 4-2 suddenly Willow had something to fight for. When James Muxagata made it 4-3, Willow started to believe that the impossible just might be possible. Remarkably Willow levelled when Ben Troy scored his second goal and Willow were unstopable. The amazing fight back was completed when in the last minute Ben Troy completed his hat-trick to score Willow's fifth goal to win 5-4. This was a brilliant match between two very good sides who played the game as it should be played. A fantastic contest and well done to both sides. Coman's and Celtic share spoils In the Under-10 South St. Comans and Connaught Celtic played out a very entertaining 1-1 draw in an excellent match. Connaught Celtic were good value for their lead. Conor Fitzmauric and Andrew Tone were pulling the strings for Celtic, but it was a little bit of individual magic that saw Celtic take the lead. Dylan Potter was the magician. He applied a cool finish holding his nerve to calmly pass the ball past the keeper for 1-0. St. Coman's inspired by Daniel Heavin and the Harvey twins, Frank and Kieran, came more into the game and deservedly drew level with an equally good goal. Lorcan daly scored the vital goal with a good first touch, a better turn and a great finish for 1-1 in a game that neither side deserved to lose. Hughes hat-trick hero Byran Hughes was the Willow Park hero as he scored a very impressive hat-trick in a 3-0 win over Hudson Bay Celtic in the under-10 West Division. This was a good game and much closer than the score might suggest. Eamon Martin and Sean Claffey were very good for Willow, while John Leonard, Cian Daly and Kevin Shine did well for Celtic, but the main man was Bryan Hughes. He opened the scoring with a good goal and made it 2-0 from the penalty spot and then completed a great hat=trick to warp up a good game. Goals galore Elsewhere there was goals galore in other games. In the Under-12 Premier Division AC Celtic were 3-0 winners over St. Coman's with two goals from Cian Quinn and one from Liam Flowers. It was a good week for AC Celtic as their under-14 side were 7-2 winners over Willow Park Reds. In a re-fixed SFAI Under-12 Cup match Temple Villa were just desperately unlucky to go out on a 5-4 scoreline away to Oranmore Maree in Galway. Aaron O'Neill scored a fantastic hat-trick and was joined on the scoreboard by Patrick Sleator, but that was not enough as they went out on an amazing 5-4 result. Equally unlucky were the St. Joseph's under-14s in the Connaught Cup against Kiltimagh/Knock who achieved a bit of a miracle to win the tie. St. Joseph's led 1-0 and 3-2 with goals from Cathal Callinan, Eoin Forde and Mark Nicholson yet lost 3-4 in yet another feast of goals. This weekend fixtures This coming weekend will see a hectic programme of fixtures. Clubs should note that we are required to re-organise our fixtures so as to fall in with the synchronise with a re-organisation of National Cup and Connaught Cup fixtures. This was just unavoidable and thus we have fixtures this week for age groups at under-10,12,14,and 16. This will iron out the glitch in the fixtures and we will revert in the following week with fixtures for under-8, 11, 13 and 16. We apologise for this unavoidable re-alignment which was totally out of our control. Development Academies The ADSL Development Academies, under the direction of the FAI's Emerging Talent Programme are now up and running. The under-11 and under-13 Academy started last weekend and they will be joined by the under-10 and under-12 Academies this week. The player and parent information meeting takes place in the Shamrock Lodge Hotel this Thursday evening at 8p.m. for the under-10 academy who get down to the real business in the AIT on Friday evening at 7p.m. The under-12 academy hold their information meeting in Athlone IT at 8p.m. on this Friday evening and commence training immediately after kicking off at 8.30p.m.