The Park Lads hosted Ballyhar yesterday in the Kerry Cup Semi-Final, this was the second time the teams met in the past few days with the Park taking the win last Tuesday night in the league with a scoreline of 6-1 with Sean McGrath on fire scoring 5 with a man of the match performance.
With a final place was up for grabs nothing would be taken for granted bt the Park who were hoping to reach there 2nd consecutive Cup final and Ballyhar were looking to avenge their defeat earlier in the week, both ingredients would serve up for a tight affair, with the Park taking the spoils 2-1 in the end.
1st half
The park started brightly passing and moving the ball with good composure and dominated the middle third with Junior,Colin and Kevin controlling midfield.
Ballyhar were playing a defensive game with 5 at the back and trying to hit the Park on the break with the ball over the top from the back but to be fair to the Park central defence of Tide & Cian coped well clearing their lines with purpose, both full backs of Rhys and Darragh were covering well and raided down the flanks at every chance.
The first real chance came to Mervin who had switched with colin upfront, a fine ball thru the channels from junior in to Mervin’s feet saw him try to chip the keeper but it was too high and sailed over the bar.The park continued to dominate put failed to breakdown a resilient defence and the half ended up nil all.
2nd Half
With everything to play for and with slight wind at their back the park continued to press forward in the 2nd half and 5 mins in were rewarded with a nice cross from mervin on the right into Sean who jinked in front of goal and managed to squeeze the ball thru the visitors defenders just past the keeper inside the right post 1-0 up and the park were now pushing forward at every occasion looking for a second. 8 mins later and Sean became the provider with mervin taking on a short pass in front of goal and coolly side footed the ball to the right of the keeper, 2-0. Shortly after Nathan came in for Liam on the left to inject a bit of pace into the play as the Park looked to close out the tie and was unlucky not to score after latching onto another fine cross from mervin to see his point blank volley stopped by the keeper, an fine instinctive save.
2 mins later the visitors drew one back from a rare defensive error from the Park with Gavin only managingto parry the ball to the oncoming forward who slotted to the net. A tense final few mins for the park who battled hard as Ballyhar pushed forward for the equaliser.
The final whistle and to the delight of the Home support the Park Lads held on to reach their second successive Cup Final.
Well done lads hopefully we can one step further this season!
The Park management would like to thank the 2 new boys from the U12’s Jamie and Cian who came into the squad at short notice, unfortunately we weren’t able to get them game time due the tight nature of the game
Also many thanks to the home supporters who helped to cheer the lads on to victory and over the winning line.
Players of Note: Sean, Mervin, Kevin, Conor, Junior ,Cian, Rhys, Nathan
Man of the Match: Darragh Moriarty
Squad on the Day: Gavin Doody, Kevin Goulding, Armin Heinrich, Junior Ankomah, Colin Walsh, Mervyn Shalemba, Nathan Gleeson, Liam Tobin, Sean McGrath, , Conor O’ Sullivan, Tide Osinubi, Rhys Keane, Darragh Moriarty, Cian Purcell, Jamie Fitzgerald, Cian Brosnan, Greg Scanlon (Injured).
Reminder: Training times next will be Mon and Fri @ 7-8pm. We have some crucial league games coming up over the next couple of weeks and the Cup Final so if the squad is to have any success this season, all players need to attend all training sessions!!
