College Corinthians advance to Munster Youth Cup quarter final after victory over Douglas Hall

Douglas Hall 1 

College Corinthians 3

College Corinthians inflicted Douglas Hall’s first defeat of the season with a well-deserved 3-1 victory in the JAKO Ireland Munster Youth Cup at Moneygourney last Monday evening. 

Both these sides have now met three times this season with the Hall taking the spoils in the U18 Premier League and League Cup games, however, to be honest the Cors were full value for their victory on this occasion. 

They dominated for most of the first half with Sean Murphy doing a superb job leading the line, terrorising the Hall’s back four with his very intelligent runs and they took a 3-0 lead in at the break courtesy of goals by Murphy, Aaron Gui and Noah Ryan.

Douglas had the strong wind to their backs in the second half, however, Corinthians were very solid at the back and with Murphy and Ryan stretching them at every opportunity on the break, they kept the Hall to only half chances. 

However, they did pull a goal back with a quarter of an hour remaining in the game through Ronan O’Shea, but that was as good as it got for them and bowed out of the competition. 

Corinthians reward for their great performance is a home quarter final tie against Tipperary side Two Mile Borris at Castletreasure tomorrow afternoon  at 2pm.

Corinthians elected to play with the strong wind to their backs in the first half and used it to their advantage, as every opportunity they played balls over the top for Sean Murphy and Noah Ryan to run on to. 

They had a penalty shout in the opening five minutes, when Murphy went down inside the Hall’s box, however, referee John Philpott rightly waved away their appeals. 

Corinthians then took an 1-0 lead in the 19th minute, Eoin Kelly played a slimline pass to Murphy on the edge of the box, he turned his defender and then opened his body to strike his effort high into the roof of he net. 

Cors now had their backs up and came close to increasing their lead five minutes later, when Noah Ryan pounced on a loose ball outside the box, but he effort was saved by Lucas Kennedy in the Douglas goal. 

They did get their reward by adding their second goal in the 35th minute, when Aaron Gui powered his 30 yard free kick into the right corner of the net to take a 2-0 lead. 

The Hall has a good opportunity to pulling a goal back in the 40th minute, Brian Linehan played in Louka Mohan, however, Raymond Foley-Kiss in their Corinthians goal rushed off his line to make a brave save. 

Two minutes later they fell three goals behind, Ryan broke down the wing for the Cors and when he cut from the right he blasted his effort into the roof of the net.

Douglas had a mountain to climb in the second half and their management team changed their formation to try get back in the game. 

As a result Linehan found a pocket of space from the edge of the box, but it took a fine save from Foley-Kiss to push his effort around the post. 

Murphy came close to grabbing his second goal of the game in the 64th minute, he raced on to a loose ball, but Eoin Kelly recovered to clear the danger for the Hall. 

Then five minutes later Douglas were reduced to ten men when Kelly was sent off and although they did pull back with a wonderful strike by Rory O’Shea it wasn’t enough on the day.

DOUGLAS HALL: Lucas Kennedy, Oisin Twohig, Scott Moynihan, Eoin Kelly, Ben Heas, George Howard, Dara O’Brien, Brian Linehan, Louka Mohan, Cian Corkery, Ronan O’Shea.

Subs: Andrew Murray for Mohan (52), Harry Walsh for Twohig (60), Ronan O’Kelly for Moynihan (78), Noah O’Callaghan for Linehan (78).

COLLEGE CORINTHIANS: Raymond Foley-Kiss, Jamie O’Brien, Aaron Gui, Harry Wixted, Jimmy Harte, James O’Connor, Noah Ryan, Keith McCarthy, Sean Murphy, Brian O’Sullivan- Connell, Geoffrey Zeph.

Subs: Sean McBride for Zeph (78), Oscar McCarthy for Gui (78), Sam O’Connell for Murphy (84).

Referee: John Philpott, Assistant Referee’s: Patrick O’Keeffe, Rarvvan Neidini.