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Esker Celtic 0-3 Castleknock Celtic
A wonderful hat-trick from Cillian Hegarty was more than enough to see Celtic through at Hermitage Park, Lucan in the first round of the Hillary Cup. Castleknock U12A travelled the short distance across the Liffey for this first round tie against their U12A1 neighbours and came home with a win and a third consecutive clean sheet to see them into the second round.
A very even contest in the first half with chances at both ends, indeed had Esker had their shooting boots on this game could have turned out very differently as they squandered several good opportunities to take the lead. However it was Castleknock that led at the interval 1-0. Yet another inspired substitution from the manager brought Jatin Ramesh into the fray on the quarter hour mark and he immediately linked up well with Captain Scott Sorohan down the right before playing in Hegarty to score the opener. This settled the nerves of the visitors but overall it was Esker that shaded the half.
Into the second period and Castleknock began to dominate. Tired legs meant more space and Castleknock started to play the better football with neat interchanges through midfield and upfront. Hegarty put the game to bed with two classy finishes earning him joint man of the match award with Sam Mulhern who had a fantastic game in defence, never putting a foot wrong. As ever Dauda Danson proved a reliable last line of defence on several occasions and the whole squad worked as a team to see them through to the second round. A great performance yet again well done lads.
