U19 Elite: UCD 1 - 1 Cobh Ramblers

• Gareth O'Reilly
• Sun, Aug 18 2013




The first round of games in the U19 league concluded with UCD welcoming Cobh Ramblers to the Belfield Bowl on Sunday afternoon. Both teams took a little while to get going before Jamie McGrath opened the scoring for the home side only for Cobh to draw level minutes later through Cian Murphy.

 

UCD controlled possession for most of this game and will have felt that they should have come away with all three points on the opening weekend. The opening ten minutes of this game saw them try to exploit the Cobh defence with free kicks and corners but neither yielded an opening goal.

 

The away side’s best player for most of the game was Jonathan Creamer as he looked to get in behind the UCD defence early on including forcing Andy Murphy to make an early save. Creamer went mightily close to opening the scoring after Cobh were awarded a free kick. The in swinging ball evaded everyone but also nearly curled past Murphy who had to be alert to deal with the danger.

 

Adam Whelan looked like a bright spark for UCD early on but it was Dylan Kavanagh that raced down the wing to set up the games opening goal. Having beaten his man Kavanagh looked up and picked out Jamie McGrath who controlled the ball before smashing past Hickey in the Cobh goal.

 

Not long after the opening goal Cobh went close to equalising as Ryan Goldsmith saw his free kick tipped just wide by Andy Murphy in the home goal. The equaliser did however come from the resulting corner and it was centre back Cian Murphy who got it. The ball bounced around the box before falling to Murphy who powered home after UCD had failed to clear their lines.

 

The second half was not quite as exciting as the first with chances hard to come by. The best chance of the half did in fact fall to Jonathan Creamer as he forced Murphy to pull off a fantastic save from six yards out when in truth the centre forward should have buried it.

 

UCD did have one last chance to win it in the dying moments as substitute Thomas Carrile took the ball down on his chest but failed to steer his shot past Eoin O'Donnovan. UCD would have liked to create more chances to go alongside the amount of possession they had but in the end a stubborn Cobh Ramblers side left Dublin with a hard earned point.

 

 

UCD: Andy Murphy; Liam Traynor, Dylan Kavanagh, Sean Coyne, Greg Sloggett; Adam Zayed, Adam Whelan (Adam Harney 80), Colm Crowe, Dean Hurley; Jamie McGrath, Pearse Traynor (Thomas Carrile 69).
Subs Not Used: Robin Joyce, Steven Byrne, Liam O'Farrell.

Booked: Adam Zayed (76).

 

Cobh Ramblers: Steven Hickey, Eoin O’Donovan, James Nagle, Kelvin Thompson, Cian Murphy (Anthony Martin 65), Jack Maguire, Ryan Goldsmith, Chris McCarthy, Jonathan Creamer, Robert Lynch, David Walsh.
Subs Not Used: Daniel Barry. Ryan Meaney, Alan Minihane, Ryan O’Brien, Aaron Hossford.