Congratulations and well done to our senior girls and boys soccer teams who did themselves and the school proud in the FAI Schools competition in DKIT in Dundalk on Wednesday and Thursday.
The girls, coached by teacher James, were up first on Wednesday, and showed great heart and skill in their four matches. Two defeats were sandwiched in between two victories against Tullydonnell and Dulargy, the latter by a seven goal margin. The team showed each other great support, and were powered along by the goalscoring of Saran, Irene and Eabha, the always-on-the-go Gemma and Keira, and some world-class goalkeeping from Kathlyn. Along with Rachel, Robyn, Jessica, Ryana, Kasy and Katie, the girls have been devoting their lunchtimes to practicing and can be proud of their efforts.
Today was the boys turn, who had shown a similar commitment to practice and team work in the run-up to the competition. This was shown in the first match where we recorded an emphatic Aston Village-record victory, where we put 18 goals past Tullydonnell. They followed this up with a well-worked 6-1 win over Collon before meeting St. Fursey’s of Haggardstown in the winner-takes-all group decider. In a tough and tense match, Aston Village took the lead through Ryan before the opposition equalised. The remainder of the match was box-to-box with Callum putting in a virtuoso defensive performance to keep Fursey’s out. Then Jack (5th) showed tremendous composure and skill to slam home the goal-ahead goal, before Jack (6th) put the icing on the cake in the final minute to record a 3-1 win. Aston Village went through as group winners with 27 goals scored and only 2 conceded.
That put us into the knockout round against Knockbridge. We took another early lead through Jack (5th), then fell behind before Jack scored his second of the game. Again we fell behind, but again we battled back to draw the match at 3-3 through Jack (6th). It wasn’t to be though as a late concession meant we missed out on finals day.
The boys represented the school and themselves with distinction. Timas made many saves in goal whilst also managing to knock in three himself. Callum and Justin showed great skill in defending and launching attacks. Conor, Ryan and Josh attacked with purpose and knocked in 13 goals between them, while the two Jacks had the goalscoring knack, also scoring 13 between them. But even more satisfying than that was the teamwork, commitment and sportsmanship which was in evidence.
While that brings the competition practice to an end, the girls and boys can now look forward to the launch of the 2018 Aston Village Lunchtime World Cup which will take place in the final term!
