Kilnamanagh’s U12s celebrate with the cup
Kilnamanagh girls win U12 Cup winners Cup
KILNAMANAGH’S Under 12s Girls team made history recently as they won the inaugural girls Cup Winners Cup emerging 4-2 victors against Bloomfield FC.
The cup format sees the champions of the Republic of Ireland take on Northern Ireland’s best in a match to see who the number one team on the island is. More than up for the task, manager Anthony Halpin spoke to The Echo about how The Rockets approached the game.
“To be honest, the way that it was coached on the day was that it’s a free shot. No one’s ever done this, no one’s ever travelled up here for something like this so be proud of what you’ve achieved down south”.
It was no easy task as the girls immediately found themselves at a disadvantage that many wouldn’t even consider.
“Their calendar year is slightly different from our calendar year so these girls we would have been playing against were mixed between 2013 and 2012 when down south all I can deal with is 2013 girls, so we were basically playing a year up against half of their team and it was visible to see, they were huge. Much stronger.”
Kilnamanagh AFC didn’t let that stop them however and a hattrick from Abbie Halpin and a collected finish from the penalty spot by Jada O’Connor saw the girls in yellow and red lift up the Cup.
The win was a perfect cap to the season and completed an incredibly impressive quadruple beating Peamount 4-0 for the DDSL Cup, Thomastown United in Kilkenny 3-1 to become the best team in the south and ended up winning the league by 5 points.
Almost going unbeaten in the process. Girls football is going from strength to strength across the country, but particularly in Kilnamanagh which is of course the home of Ireland captain and Champions League winner Katie McCabe.
The club hosted a mini world cup during the women’s tournament and saw hundreds of kids come down.
Since then it has only been growing in numbers.
“The influx of girls since that has been astronomical, it’s been crazy. We actually don’t have enough space. We now have 24 boys teams and I think it’s 17 girls teams so it’s nearly on par with the boys section.”
