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Celtic's U12A team started 2016 where they left off in 2015 with another win, this time 4-2 at home to Cabinteely FC. Playing at home for the first time since October Celtic had a full squad of 13 to choose from although a few lads had been beset by illness and injury in recent weeks.
Celtic started sluggishly, the excesses of too many selection boxes over Christmas taking their toll, which allowed Cabinteely to have a couple of long range efforts on the Celtic goal. This seemed to stir the home side into action and before long they found a nice passing rhythm that they maintained throughout the first half. Celtic opened the scoring through a well taken penalty by Ben McDonagh following a wonderful run from Cillian Hegarty down the right which resulted in a deliberate handball on the Cabinteely line.
A fairly even contest for the remainder of the half with good individual contests across the pitch and chances for both sides, notably Eryk Fecowicz flashing a 20 yard right foot shot on the turn which was just wide for Celtic. His brother Konrad Fecowicz in the Celtic goal was called into action several times to keep the visitors at bay.
However an inspired substitution by the Celtic manager after 20 minutes, bringing on Malik Shushan resulted in Shushan netting after only being on the pitch for 60 seconds which put Celtic 2-0 up. Scott Sorohan added a third before half time and Celtic led 3-0 at the break and were good value for their lead.
Cabinteely refused to lie down however and pulled one back with a nice header from a sharp in-swinging corner which the Celtic defence couldn't deal with. Birthday boy and Man of The Match Ben Nolan restored Celtic's three goal lead shortly after with a nice finish across the keeper midway through the half. Cabinteely came back for more and got a deserved second soon after, keeping their hopes alive.
The Celtic defence of James Murgatroyd, Dauda Danson, Brian Carolan and Sam Mulhern stood resolute in the final ten minutes denying Cabinteely again and again and Konrad in goal produced two wonderful fingertip saves to preserve the lead. Jatin Ramesh and Ciaran Murtagh had fine games in midfield with Ciaran in particular winning a lot of ball in the centre and showing some nice passing along with it.
In the end the lads came out deserved winners making it 6 wins in their last 6 league games. Very well done lads a great performance with a lot of positives to take forward to next weekend.
