Match Report - Kilbarry Rangers 3-1 Piltown

We got off to a bad start when Piltown countered us and their left winger hit a thunderbolt from range that hit the top of the right post past Kieran as we went down 1-0 early on.

Took us some time to get going but from around the 15th minute onward we we were in total control. We should have been level when Glen Kavanagh raced through but a great save from the keeper preserved Piltowns lead.

There was frustration before half time when a corner that was knocked down was met by Glen Kavanagh and he poked in off the post for what we thought was the equaliser however the referee deemed it to be a foul on the keeper and gave a free out, from where we were standing it looked harsh as we thought Glen got to the ball first.

Just when it looked like it may be one of those days we finally equalised on the stroke of half time, good play from Conor Hennessy played Jack Walsh down the left wing and his ball across the box was met by Daniel Mihalache who got us level at 1-1. A crucial goal!

After half time the Piltown keeper continued to perform heroics and we were wondering what we had to do to score but the lead finally came when Conor Hennessy picked up the ball from 25 yards out, his swerving strike dipped and was fumbled by the keeper into the box, and running onto it was number 5 Craig Ayers who powered home on his first appearance in a while to put us 2-1 in front. Craig’s trained very well recently and earned his chance and he was a rock all game at centre back and this goal was deserved for his work.

Once again we battered the goal but for whatever reason couldn’t find the killer goal, again credit to the Piltown keeper.

But the killer goal did eventually come in stoppage time when hard work from Conor Houlihan lead to him winning the ball and it fell kindly to Jack Walsh who finished expertly in front of goal to put us 3-1 in front.

Overall it was a frustrating day, with respect to the opposition who caused us problems also, we could’ve scored a lot more on another day but we will learn more from this performance as we had to show grit, team work, and perseverance, we haven’t spent a lot of time behind in games this season so this was a good challenge for us to show what kind of a team we aspire to be and we rose to challenge and came back to get the points. Well done boys