End of Season party

Everyone had great fun at our end of season party, even if some people ended up wetter than they expected. Here are a few pictures from the trophy presentation ceremony.

Narrow defeat in tightly fought cup final

This years cup final we a repeat of last years where we faced WFTA. The venue was St Joseph's in Salynoggin and we the girls were delighted to see their dressing room and pitch allocation displayed on the closed circuit television system in the club house.

WFTA started the match strongly and had several header which would have put them in the lead if it was not for some great saves from Dani.  WFTA finally opened the scoring in the 14th minute, but Ellie equalised 2 minutes later (16th). It stayed that way til half time.

The second half was only 2 minutes young when WFTA took the lead again. Castleknock fought bravely and Ciara brought the sides level again in the 43rd minute. There was a penalty awarded 3 minutes later with only 4 minutes left to play when a WFTA player handled the ball. Our player-of-the-match Emma hit a perfect shot into the
bottom right hand corner, but the WFTA keeper managed to get a hand to
the ball and tap it wide. This seemed to give WFTA the encouragement
they needed and with us pressing forward for the winner WFTA broke away and scored with less than a minute left on the clock.

I know that some of the the girls were disappointed to lose, but they can be very proud of an excellent first season in the DWSL.We can celebrate on Wednesday evening when we will have our end of season party. I know that the voting for the player of the season is almost as close as the scoreing in the final.

End of season party scheduled for next Wednesday 2nd of June

Because of the under 12 girls being in the final this weekend we have decided to postpone the end of season party to Wednesday next (2nd/June). This will be at the normal training time. Hopefully we will have a lovely trophy to add to the celebrations.

We need to get the player of the year votes and the €10 contributions in advance of the party. Hopefully everyone can bring them along to the cup final tomorrow.

Arrangements for the cup final

As reported on the club web site we qualified for the cup final again this year by beating Mount Merrion 2-0. Like last year our opponents will be WFTA. Kick off is at 11am on Saturday (not Sunday as originally announced). The final will be held in Pearse Park in Salynoggin, this is quite a distance away so we will meet up at 9:45 beside the all-weather pitches.

I am quietly confident that we can win the title this year. Hopefully we will have a full turn out of players and supporters.

Playing Mount Merrion in the Semi-Final of the cup

I just found out that we will be playing Mount Merrion in the semi-final of the cup. It will be a home match for us with kick-off at 6:45pm on Wednesday 26th of May. This will be a very tough match since Mount Merrion had a 100% record in the league (they were the only team to beat us).  I hope we can have a great turn out for this match since we will need to have a full strength team for this vital match.

Castleknock edge past Dundalk in tightly fought cup quarter final.

We knew from our experience in the league that Dundalk FC would be tough opponents for our cup quarter final match. Dundalk started very strongly and managed to get into an early lead with  a goal after 10 minutes. Castleknock fought back strongly and our player-of-the-match Aoibheann Lynch levelled the scores after 15 minutes. Unfortunately Dundalk hit back again with another goal shortly before half-time to leave the score at 2-1 going into the half-time.

Both sides had several chances in the second half, but when 22 minutes had passed without any more scores it looked like the match was going to end with a 2-1 victory for Dundalk. Then Leah Byrne brought the game back to life when she tapped home a cross from Aoibheann to level the scores at 2-2. The last few minutes of the match were very exciting with both sides attacking very strongly. Everyone was assuming that the match would go into extra time when Ciara Brady managed to connect with a corner and tap the ball into the Dundalk net.

It must have been a very sad bunch of players on the bus back to Dundalk, but at least they can be proud of the way they played in this very exciting match.

Decisive victory in match against Lucan United.

There was a lot at stake as we lined out against Lucan United since this match was counting as both a league and a cup match at the same time. Lucan turned up without a full team and so we agreed to play 7-a-side. Castleknock started very strongly when Ciara Brady scored a hat-trick within the first 10 minutes. Laura and Emma got the scoresheet shortly afterwards and then Aoibheann added 2 more goals to make the score 7-0 at half time.

Lucan were not disheartened by being behind and came out much stronger for the second half. In the first half Ellie had a very quiet time in goals, but Hayley who replaced her for teh second half was much busier and had to make some very dramatic saves. Nevertheless our forwards were also very busy attacking. Ellie made up for her quiet first half by scoring two goals before coming off with an injured hand. Laura stretched the lead to 10-0 and Lucan scored an own-goal before Lucy Hanlon closed off the scoring at 12-0.

This now completes our league fixtures. I don't know where we came yet because many of the other teams have not yet completed all their games. However, with such great results we are certain to be near the top. Our next cup match will be against Dundalk FC who beat Ratoath last night in their first round match.

Final League match and start of cup campaign

On Wednesday evening we will play host to Lucan United. This match will kick off at the slightly earlier time than usual of 6:15pm which means that we will need to meet up at Porterstown at 6pm to get ready. This will be the last match of our league campaign (where it looks likely that we will be in second place) and the match will also count as the first round of our cup campaign.

Decisive 5-1 victory over WFTA

It was a lovely summer evening when our old rivals WFTA came to Porterstown for a DWSL league match. Initially the match started off very level, with both Castleknock and WFTA having several scoring chances. However, after 24 minutes Ciara dribbled most of the length of the pitch before launching a rocket of a shot. The WFTA keeper saved the initial shot, but she wasn't able to hold onto the ball and Laura was on hand to slot the ball into the back of the net to give Castleknock a narrow lead. Shortly afterwards Laura had another narrow miss, but the score stayed at 1-0 at half time.

Castleknock came out much more strongly for the second half. Our goalie Dani kicked a long ball to Aoibheann who dribbled the ball into the box and unleashed a great shot. The WFTA keeper was not able to hold onto the ball and once again Laura was on hand to stretch out lead to 2-0. About 2 minutes later Laura scored again to earn her a hat trick and the title of player-of-the-match.

WFTA did their best to get back into the game, but Dani was in top form in the Castleknock goal and they only managed to score a single goal to bring the socre back to 3-1. Towards the end of the match, Leah and Ciara got a goal each to stretch the lead to 5-1 to put the result beyond doubt.

DWSL Cup Draw announced

I have just received notification of the draw for the DWSL under 12 shield. In the first round we are drawn against Lucan United at home. Kick-off is at 6:45pm on Wednesday next 12th of May. Click here to see the full draw.