Junior 9s v AIB
Our Junior 9s played AIB on Sunday June 12th in the High Perfornmance DCU Centre on Ballymun Road. This is where the Dubs do most of their training. We were very pleased with the facilities and the respect that was afforded us. The memories were flooding backing to Paul Griffin as he stopped to have a chat with Jason Sherlock , who was just finishing a training session for the under 14 Dublin Squad. As DKNY sauntered in the the Dressing rooms , he felt very much at home. Crokes 9s had assembled a beautiful balance of Age ( Jol/ Ken / Robbie), Beauty ( Barrai Brennan/ DKNY ), Pedigree ( Oisin O Carroll/ Ciaran McGrath)and youth ( Minors Adam/ Matt). Both AIB ( no sub) and Crokes 9s ( 2 subs) decided on a very minimalist squad rotation system. The referee arrived just as both teams were getting anxious about him not showing. It was a glorious afternoon for football with the conditions warm and humid. As we had no goalkeeper assigned to this team, Nick McGrath was volunteered to stand between the posts for the first half and DKNY for the second half. Without overly exerting themselves Crokes9s eased into the game nicely with Kevin O Cearball / DKNY,/ Barrai Brenna tapping over some nice points. The Highlight was DKNY hammering home a goal after JOL distracted the Full back with a measured decoy run. Half time score had CroKes leading 1-7 to 0-4. After refreshments and a few changes (DKNY into goal), the second half resumes. It was a free flowing entertaining game with AIB holding on to procession very well and full of running. Crokes9 slowly closed out the game and won by 10 points in the end. We kept our first clean sheet of the season and we have kept our outside prospect for promotion intact. Final score Crokes 2-16 , AIB 0-12