Club notes & match report V Dulwich Harps

Training continues on Tuesday and Thursday in Highgate Wood School, N8 8RN at 7:20pm. Contact Paul Maher on 07551 992977. We have top class training facilities on a grass pitch and state of the art floodlit all weather pitch. New players welcome

The club would like to thank Peter Middleton and The Aisling Project for the use of their mini bus each week. This is a huge benefit for getting to and from games.

There is no game this weekend due to the bank holiday.

Thanks to all that made it out to support us yesterday. It was a great turnout with Oisin Maher getting to see his dad manage on the sideline for the first time.

Eire Og v Dulwich Harps – Division 3 league game

Yesterday we played our first league game of the season versus Dulwich Harps out in Goodmayes. The weather may have been ideal for a game; less could be said about the pitch with the grass been close to knee height in some parts.

The game got underway on time and with the wind against us we conceded several early scores from breaking balls that we did not win. After ten minutes or so we decided to wake up and get into the game. We got two points back to close the gap. Some solid tackles from Liam “Turbo” Dunne and Brian “The Beast” Dingey ensured that Dulwich knew we were up for the challenge.

Louie “Osama” Doherty had a great chance when in on goal but a Dulwich player made a great block to prevent Louie from scoring. We went in at half time 0-2 to 0-9 down at half time.

Nigel Drew was playing out of position at half forward and was putting his ageing legs to good use, so much so at half time he added two years on to his real ago to state he was 35 …. And not 33! Shay “You Langer” O Donoghue made his debut of for the club starting at right half back and was pushed into midfield to use his speed.

We made several positional changes early in the second half to try and take advantage of having the wind in the second half. Conor “Speedy Gonzales” Nilan had a chance to take a score after a good move down the pitch but it hit the outside of the post. This summed up our luck and we have five other wide balls in the second half.

A nasty clash of heads between Niall Murray and a Dulwich Harps ended up with both players been split open. Thankfully Niall could carry on playing but the Dulwich player sustained gash on the head. We wish him a speedy recovery.

We pushed on later in the second half and had the bulk of possession with Sean Allen, Donal Flynn and Richie Graham putting in a solid shift. As we pilled up the pitch to try and get a goal or two we where caught on the break, Dulwich made a swift move up the pitch and scored a goal, this was a big blow as Dave Moran in goal and the full backs had a good game and we close to keeping a third clean sheet of the season.

The game finished Eire Og 0-3 to 1-12 to Dulwich the score line may seem as though we got hammered. If we had of woken up before the game and not ten minutes into it would have been a lot less.

In the end it felt like case of one step forward and two steps back with how this game turned out. We will dust ourselves off and come back fighting stronger in our next game.

Hopefully at our next game our youngest member of the club young Oisin Maher (age 5 months) son of manager Paul will be able to tog out and show the lads a lesson or two in how to play the game!

It is essential that all players attend training on Tuesday and Thursdays.