Castleknock Celtic 0    Swords Manor  2

NDSL 9A1   

Saturday, 11thMarch,2005 

It was a cracker of a day down in Porterstown for this closely fought encounter. With the home side carrying a couple of injuries, it was always going to be an uphill battle. Castleknock battled well for the first two quarters and were really unlucky not to have scored from two class, powerful, headed opportunities from corners. Patrick Rocca and Ryan Moore Kearney were on the end of them and if they had gone in, they would have burst the net.  

Celtic tipped off for the third quarter and Swords nipped in and before you could say “David Fogarty”, he took the ball through the entire team and smacked it into the net. The heads went down a little but the home side battled on and Phillip Fitzpatrick was unlucky with a long sweeping ball in from the right wing. Swords pressed on and would have increased their lead a number of times, had it not been for fine goal-keeping by Eoin Sweeney. 

In the final minutes, Eoin stopped a scorcher but it bounced off a defender and into the net. It was not a true reflection on the performance for a hard working team who were without one of their key players and two who were recovering from injuries. It was just a couple of lapses in concentration that separated the sides in the end.