On Saturday 11 April, Davitts Under 8 Footballers did themselves and their club proud when they travelled to An Riocht GAC in County Down and beat all before them to win the covetted trophy. There were 24 teams in the competition, representing counties Down, Armagh, Tyrone, Fermanagh and Antrim.Davitts were in a group consisting of Carryduff, Attical, Saval and Clan Eireann. However, from the first whistle of the opening game, Davitts imposed themselves on the competition, and in the course of the four matches, they rattled up an amazing tally of 22 goals and 8 points, whilst conceding a mere 2 points.
After a short break, the knock out stage of the competition commenced and Davitts were paired with South Down outfit, Longstone. However, the pattern was very much the same as the group stage and the young lads from Clonard ran out easy victors in the end by a scoreline of 5-2 to 1-1. At this stage, the players, mentors and supporters were starting to get excited about the prospects of making the final, however, first of all they had to overcome another Antrim side in the shape of Glenravel.
This turned out to be the closest game thus far by a distance and only some great defending in the second half by the defence kept the young Glensmen at bay, with Davitts winning by a 2 goal margin.The grand final then threw up a familiar pairing from earlier in the day, however, it was the Clan Eireann first string that had made it through to the ultimate stage of the competition, and they were quality opposition indeed. Davitts, playing into the breeze in the first half, started brilliantly and by the interval they lead by 2-1 to 0-1. This looked to be a very healthy position as the wind had freshened up considerably throughout the day, however, the young Lurgan team came storming back in the second half and having scored a goal and a point, there was only a score between the sides going into the final minute or so.
The nerves were jangling a fair bit and when Clan Eireann went through one on one with young Dean Prenter, it looked as if extra time was looming, but the goalkeeper pulled off a great stop and when the rebound was kicked narrowly wide, the referee blew the final whistle to kick start well deserved celebrations amongst the Davitts ranks.It had been a great day for all concerned and a great team effort from the boys and their mentors, Kevin McParland and Anthony Robinson. And in saying that all of the boys fully contributed to this win, special mention is deserved for a few of the young lads who really impressed on the day and were given praise from a number of the other teams’ mentors; they were Padraig Robinson who covered every blade of grass on the pitch and Conor Farley, who must have bagged himself at least 10 goals during the tournament.
Also, Davitts would like to extend a big thank you to An Riocht for organising such a wonderful tournament, and no doubt, we look forward to returning to defend the title in 2010.Davitts Panel: Jack McCandless, Dean Prenter, Padraig Robinson, Ryan Donaghy, Anthony O’Mahoney, Conor Farley, Benjamin McKeown, Padraig Slane, Conor McCullough, John Joe O’Neill, Felan Coulton, Jack Kerr, Sean Og Prenter, Patrick Bonnar.
