A “crack of dawn” game for our Minor girls (09:00) according to several members of the 2nd year girls’ team who hosted their counterparts from Rathdown School in Glenageary Saturday, 21st of January 2023. First Saturday game on the St. Kilian’s this season and clearly at an hour that did not favour teenagers at all!
Nonetheless we had a very strong showing with 17 girls in the match day squad, including several of our younger stars supporting from the 1st year ranks. The talk before the game was all about how Rathdown apparently trained 4 times a week but all was forgotten once the whistle blew. St. Kilian’s under a bit of pressure but acquitting themselves admirably with particularly strong performances from Lily Little, Isabel Horrigan and Connie Crawley. The midfield verve was supplied by captain Hannah Doyle with her engine room colleagues Lily Duff and Clara Rohling and slowly but surely St. Kilian’s started to turn suffocating pressure into meaningful attacking opportunities with Aoife Chubb going close and Arianna Gonzalez seeing plenty of the ball.
Defensive short corners were a real highlight as dual-sport star Matylda Stelmaszek beat the ball to the top of the circle more than once to disrupt planned Rathdown attacks. Even with a full bench the pressure did eventually tell however with the girls conceding two very late goals to finish up 2-0 on the morning. No evidence of any worry however as virtually the whole team decamped to nearby HX46 for some well-deserved hot chocolate.
Dave Broderick
Hockey Coach at St. Kilian’s
