Celebrations as Tullamore's U-16 hockey outfit win the West Leinster Cup

Huge congratulations to the Under 16s Tullamore hockey team who played their West Leinster Cup Final V’s Carlow in Naas last Sunday.    It has been 13 years since Tullamore last won the West Leinster Cup and the team were ready to meet this challenge and get their hands back on the trophy.    We had beaten another Carlow team in an earlier round and knew that they would be well prepared, and ready to avenge their clubs previous loss.

The game started at a furious pace but the Tullamore girls commanded pocession from the outset and pushed forward at every opportunity.    The backline took an early blow when Aine Byrne, who has had a super season, had to come off due to a    pre-existing injury. The Tullamore sweeper, Grace Malone, together with backs, Aine Varley and Aoife Worrell were not phased, and pushed back at every challenge put to them by the Carlow attack.    Niamh Keyes came on to replace Aine and had an immediate impact by pushing up the field and taking the Carlow defense off guard.    Despite that, the Carlow goalie stood strong and the ball was cleared.    The strong midfield line of Aoife Greene, Elodie LeBourhis and Aoibhean Birney worked well together and kept feeding the ball back to the forward line of Julie Slattery, Sinead Flanagan and Sophie Hamill.    Despite a number of opportunities and clever play from the Tullamore girls, they remained scoreless at half time.

In the 3rd  quarter, the opposition made a break through the Tullamore defence, which was against the run of play.    Despite an initial save by goalie Alice Ward, a follow through shot came in and left the Tullamore side with a 1-0 deficit during the 3rd  quarter.    At the restart, centre forward Julie Slattery made a super run eliminating 4 Carlow players single-handedly, pushing hard for an equalizer but play was soon halted at the end of quarter.

Sunniva Hornick-Johnston came on with fresh legs for the 4th  quarter into the forward line.    The Tullamore team didn’t stop believing and with only seconds remaining were awarded a penalty corner.    The full time whistle sounded, but the penalty corner had to be played out.    With the match at stake, the full Tullamore team surrounded the opposition goal.    The penalty corner was expertly injected out by Aoibhean Birney to Elodie LeBourhis and that led to another penalty corner.    This time the ball went to Aoife Greene and the shot was deflected into the opposition goal by Sunniva.    Tullamore were back to 1-1 at full time.

The game then went to shuttles to decide the winning side.    These are 8 second runs 1v1 on the goalie and require nerves of steel, each team    with 5 opportunities to score.    Goalie Alice Ward kept her head throughout and Tullamore’s Aoibhean Birney, Elodie LeBourhis and Aoife Greene, all with superbly taken shuttles left the Tullamore side ahead.    Alice Ward made sure of the win leaving Tullamore with 3-1 win after both sides had taken 4 shuttles and the Tullamore side were victorious.

Well done to all the players and to those who have taken part in preliminary rounds, including Ella McNally who was a key participant in an earlier match. 

Special thanks to Offaly Sports Partnership for sponsoring the medals and to Naas hockey club for hosting the final and providing umpires on the day.