The 1st XI girls celebrate their 5-0 victory over Dalriada in the quarter-final of the Schools Cup.
After a great performance against a strong Armagh side in the third round, excitement was the overriding emotion within the team approaching the quarter final. Dalriada were an unknown team to us, never appearing before in our fixture list, which gave them a surprise element which could prove to be dangerous. In preparation for the match we had a number of outdoor, indoor and classroom sessions to work on set plays and formations to help us maximise our strengths and put on our best possible performance against Dalriada. This year we have a relatively young team so in the days approaching the match nerves were present in our whole team, especially our less experienced players, who coped well with the pressure none-the-less.
On the day of the match we had lots of support which added pressure for some, and pushed others on- encouraging them to play well. The game started out fairly evenly, with impressive play from both sides. However,We went 1-0 early on from a well-executed short corner, with the goal coming from our captain Zara Malseed. Two more goals followed from Zara later on in the first half, giving us a comfortable 3-0 lead going into half time. From what we had heard about from other teams about Dalriada, we knew they were a strong team who would fight until the very end, so we knew we couldn’t let standards slip in the second half, despite our 3 goal lead.
We started the second half with the same fast pace and intensity we had played with in the first, dominating the play early and holding on to possession. Two goals from Katharine Hill shortly followed; a great strike from a short corner and later a goal from open play. Dalriada were a good opposition and kept testing us until the final whistle, with a number of good runs that were well handled by our defence.
As the final whistle blew it settled in that we had just won the quarter final of the schools cup, a very convincing 5-0 victory. Everyone was ecstatic that the work we had all put in up to this point had paid off. We have now earned a place in the semi-final against Friends School Lisburn, for the first time for all of us in this competition, and we plan to fight hard to earn our place in the final.
Caitlin Young Katharine Hill
