Ireland CP Soccer Team Runners up in the Home Nations Championship.
July 21st, 2009. In: CPSI
Home Nations Championship Lilleshall
The Ireland Cerebral Palsy team have come runners up in the Home Nations Championship after beating Scotland, 3 - 2 at Lilleshall National Sports Centre in Shropshire.
In a tight game on Saturday, Ireland started more positively than Scotland and there were a few half chances during the first ten minutes. Ireland pushed on and in the 11th minute with a great move from the backs they found Darren Kavanagh out on the wing. Darren looked up and spotted the keeper off his line and curved a shot from out wide straight into the net.
Scotland came back strong and in the 18th minute got an equaliser. Brian Mc Gilvarry after a bad collision collapsed on the pitch and had to be taken away to hospital. This held the game up for a while and shook the lads so much so that that game had just restarted when the Scots took the lead in the 23rd minute.
The Irish lads rallied and within a minute Gary Messitt with a superb pass found Darragh Snell free in the box and he slotted the ball home 2 - 2 and the game was on.
The match-winner came in the 48th minute when Finbarr O’ Riordan spectacularly scored a header in the 48th minute. 3 - 2 to Ireland and great defensive work from Joe Markey and Kieran Devlin kept the Scots out. Overall a great game for the lads after been beaten 3 - 1 by England the day before.
Development Squad.
The development squad played 3 matches over the weekend against England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. This was a mixture of young players and players who have come back into the squad. The first game they played well, but ran out losing by 3 - 0 to the North. Second match was a lot closer and after a great game were narrowly defeated 1 - 0 to Scotland. The last match was England who were too good on the day for our lads but the lads kept playing to the end. This was a great experience for the young lads and they will improve from this.