Sat 7th May 2022, in Clooney Quin.

Our U12 girls played their first league matches against Clooney Quin on a sunny Saturday morning in Clooney Quin. The Bridge fielded 2 teams, the Blue team captained by Lily Flannery and the Yellow team captained by Sarah O'Grady.

Blue Team

The blue team got a great start with Sarah Conroy and Sarah Conlon hitting the Clooney Quin net to leave us up 2 goals to nil at half time.

Our captain Lily Flannery, aided by Clara Rose Wrixon-Todd, Emily Leyden & Grace McNamara kept the sliotar clear of the Bridge goal. At mid-field, Emma Chaplin, Anna Gilligan, Lucy Conroy, Teagan O'Connor and Rachel Chaplin worked tirelessly & kept ample supply of ball to our forwards Sarah Conlon, Sarah Conroy, Maeve Scanlon & Amy Fitzpatrick. We saw some great scores from Sarah Conlon (1-4) and Lucy Conroy (3-1) in the second half. In the dying minutes, our goalie Sarah Farrell brought off some fine saves to deny Clooney Quin of any score.

Yellow Team

SMB yellow team opened the scoring with a well taken point from play from Caoimhe Liddane. 3 minutes later a long ball in from midfield by the impressive Brooke O Connell followed by some neat interplay between Aoibheann Chaplin and Mary Donnellan saw the ball land to the skilful Anna Madigan who made no mistake rifling the ball to the net. This made the score 1-01 to 0-00 with 10 minutes to the break. Clooney really upped the tempo now to get back in the game but the SMB backs led by Aizea Keane, Maebh Murphy and Roisin Moloney held firm with some massive relieving clearances. In front of them the tenacious tackling and work rate of Darcy O Hara flanked by Rachel Pyne and Saoirse Hughes limited Clooney’s ability to win clean ball.

Half time saw the introduction of Jamila Naimi into goals with captain Sarah O Grady moving to centre forward. Sarah Cleary and Lily O Sullivan were also introduced and brought great energy to the game. Soon after the throw in great work again by Brooke and Sarah O Grady saw the ball delivered inside to Caoimhe Liddane who controlled, turned and ran at the Clooney goal and hit a great goal.

Clooney never gave up to their credit and piled on the pressure for long periods. Jamila made some valuable saves to keep the goals out and again the defensive line limited Clooney to a 45 and a late free. It was a great contest between 2 very good teams. SMB ran winners in the end on a score line of 2-01 to 0-02.

We play Kilmaley in the next round on Tuesday the 17th.