A resounding 4-1 victory in friendly in Ratoath

The wind was blowing a gale when our under 12 team arrived in Ratoath for our first match of the season, Our captain Emma won the toss and chose to play with the wind. Two minutes later she took advantage of the wind to open the scoring with a brilliant shot from the edge of the penalty area.

Shortly afterward Dani who was playing her first match ever for Castleknock Celtic stretched the lead to 2-0.

Castleknock made full use of the gale and the opening half was played in the Ratoath half of the pitch. Ellie made it 3-0 with another fine goal with 12 minutes of the first half gone.

The Castleknock was stretched to 4-0 when Catherine's long distance shot was deflected into the goal by Rataoth defender after 17 minutes.

The rain came down heavily in the dying minutes of the half and I think everyone was delighted when the ref blew the whistle for half-time and we could rush in for shelter.

We were expecting Ratoath to dominate the second half due to the wind, but it was Castleknock who opened strongly. Straight from the kick-off Catherine was denied another score by the crossbar. After 7 minutes Emma was narrowly wide with a long kick.

Rataoth did not give up and began to put huge pressure on. Luckily Lucy and Fiona had a great game in defence. Goalie Sarah also had more chances to show off her skills than we wanted. After 20 minutes a Ratoath corner curled into the Castleknock goal to make it 4-1.

Ratoath struggled strongly for the rest of the match to reduce our lead, but it was Leah and Holly had several chances to stretch the lead further in the Castleknock attack.

We had several brilliant performances today, but player of the match award goes to Dani for a great debut.