Football 9 a side 06/07 Champions

Football 9-a-side 06/07

By: Cormac Dillon and Luke Uniacke

This year was yet another great sporting year for Carrabane N.S. This year the boys won the 9-a-side County Final for the third year in a row!!
We had a good start this year. We topped the group by beating Gorteen and New Inn. It was a hard group but we managed to top the
group.
The semi final was two weeks after the qualifiers. We played Ballymana. It was tight first half. We were only winning by three points. However in the second half worked well as a team together and started putting scores on the board. We ended up winning by thirteen points. We started training in the mornings for the final at 8.15am to 9.00am. It was hard but it paid off in the end!!! By the time the two weeks came and we were ready and hyped up for the match!!!!!
It was on a Tuesday evening in Mountbellew at 6.00pm. We were all nervous in the dressing rooms, but when our principal psyched us up, we couldn’t wait to get started.
We went out and got our photograph taken. We then warmed up and were ready to go!!
The match started at 6.10pm. The ball was thrown in and we had a wonderful start with 2-1 up on the board after a few minutes into the first half. Ronan Fahy and Shane Caulfield with 2-1 between them. We then got another goal by Robbie Thurston and Luke Uniacke scored another few points on the board. After fifteen minutes Coolarne started fighting back with 1-1. The score at this stage the score was 3-3 to 1-1. They then got four more points from frees by Connor Moran Coolarne’s corner forward. We went into half time four points up.

Once again we got a brilliant start with Luke Uniacke scoring 1-1 and after a long range free kick by Shane Caulfield, Padraig Hannon got a fist to the ball and punched it into the back of the net! After that Coolarne started coming back once again with a few more points from play and frees. The score now is 4-4 to 1-12, a very tight game. Now our tired defence and mid fielders had to come back and defend. They started passing the ball more and running at our defence but the defence came out on top.

The last minute of the game they had one last break with the ball! Their captain came one on one wit our keeper Cormac Dillon with close runners Luke Uniacke and John Egan .He got around the keeper and went for goal to win! But John Egan made a dramatic and unbelievable dive and put it out for a 45.the ball was kicked in and their corner forward got it but put it wide! The final kick out was taken and the final whistle was blown! Yes! We won! Carrabane are 9-a-SIDE CHAMPIONS! 3 in a row!

The panel of that year was as follows:

1. Cormac Dillon, 2. Niall Maher, 3. David mangan,
4. John Egan, 5. Shane Caulfield, 6. Robbie Thurston,
7. Padraig Hannon, 8. Ronan Fahy, 9. Luke Uniacke,

Substitutes: Brian Hickey, Evan Cannon, Robbie McGrath, Billy Riordan, Tomas Bryan, Richard Daniels, Daniel Boreham and Paul Boreham.