Another football success for the county. Dublin’s U17 panel made the trip to the Wexford GAA Centre of Excellence this past Saturday, and retained their Matty Forde Tournament Trophy. This is the second year the Dubs have claimed this honour having won the inaugural competition last year.
Dublin, under the watchful eye of manager Tom Gray, got the day off to a winning start against Tyrone. The Ulster men initially piled the pressure on but a goal from David Lacey settled things down. A mass of pressure in the second half saw the Dubs over the line, with goals from Hugh Kenny and James Doran, along with some fabulous points from Emmet Allen to settle the score at 3-08 to 0-07.
The second game of the day saw the Dubs pitted against the hosts Wexford, and Dublin didn’t make things easy for themselves with a lot of wasted chances. Luckily, there were enough green and white flags to out still outscore their opponents and goals from Harry Ladd and Ryan Meaney aided the cause as Dublin ran out winners by 2-06 to 0-02.
The boys in blue were starting to peak once they got to the Semi Final stage and the score was indeed much more comprehensive against Carlow. Goals once again from Harry Ladd (2) and Ryan Meaney, along with a couple more from Darragh Conlon and Eoghan Joyce saw Dublin win convincingly on a score of 5-13 to 0-04.
The panel finished their day as they started meeting Tyrone again in the tournament final. And this was Dublin at their best. Doran and Kenny, like the opening game, found the net along with Karl Bissett and Dan Brennan, all in the first half which pretty much won the game with the half time score at 4-03 to 1-00. Dublin only allowed Tyrone 2 scores after the break and added 4 more points themselves to win the tournament comfortably on a score of 4-07 to 1-02.
Dublin manager Gray told the Herald they had a decent day.
“It was probably the first time that we had close to our full panel working together and it was positive to see the lads playing well like that”.
“Tyrone were a decent team and I thought we put in two very good performances against them”.
“We’re looking forward to getting going again and days like Saturday will help our plans for 2017”.
Dublin Panel For the Matty Forde Tournament:
James Keoghan, David O’Hanlon, Karl Fox, Rory Kerins, Peadar Ó’Cofaigh, Kieran Kennedy, Sam Lally, Neil Matthews, Luke Walsh, Aaron Lynch, Seán Lambe, Gavin Nangle, Mark Treacy, Darren Maher, Tom Magee, Daniel Denneher, Donal Ryan, Karl Bissett, James Doran, Niall O’Leary, Darragh Conlon, Emmet Allen, Hugh Kenny, Seán Hawkshaw, David Lacey, Daniel Brennan, Eoghan Joyce, Robert McCormack, Ryan Meaney, Harry Ladd.
(image credit: dublingaa.ie)
