|
|
|
The Kennedy Cup |
| Listed below is a detailed account of the 2006 U13 Wicklow Kennedy Cup squad, featuring a good number of Arklow Town players, and how they competed with the country's finest in the much acclaimed Kennedy Cup down in Limerick. |
 |
The Wicklow League Kennedy Cup Squad is managed by Arklow Town's Brian Byrne and ably assisted by Arklow Town Coaches Daragh Murray, Sean Byrne, Paul Diviney, John Power and Physio David Blake. Brian and the lads set-up the first Wicklow League Development Squad in 2003 at U11. The idea was to bring as many players together as possible and start training, coaching and developing them from U11 for three years in preparation for the U13 Kennedy Cup in 2006. This is an All Ireland County Soccer competition and is held every year in the University of Limerick.
|
The U11 Development Squad started off with 40 players after over 200 players had undergone trials throughout the County. The development squad gave our top players an incentive to stay in Wicklow to play football because they were getting access to coaching at a consistent standard at County Level. When the squad became U12's, the Wicklow League set up another U11 squad for the year coming behind. Currently, there are 2 development squads - U11 and U12 and the U13 Kennedy Cup squad. Next season, hopefully, there will be another one created at U11 for the new U11 players coming through.
When the squad reached U12's there were 32 players on the panel. They played in two Inter County Competitions during that year. They played in the TAB Cup Competition where they came fourth and they got to the All Ireland Semi-Final of the U12 Inter League Competition, losing to eventual winners the DDSL. At the end of their U12 year the squad was reduced to 24 players.
This year the squad trained twice a week with matches nearly every second week. Coaching was provided by very qualified coaches like Lar Mahony, Jack Stafford (Wexford) and John Power (goalkeeping). The squad was finally reduced in March to the 20 players that would take part in the Kennedy Cup in June 2006. Arklow Town has 16 players in the squad - a tremendous achievement for any club. |
| Finally, the competition arrived and Wicklow kicked off their campaign on Monday June 12th with a match against the North Dublin League. Unfortunately, they lost that group match 4 - 0 and got off to a bad start. On Tuesday June 13th, the team played their second group match against Kildare and suffered a narrow 1 - 0 defeat. This meant that they were out of the Kennedy Cup competition proper and were now battling with Roscommon in their last group match for third place and entry into the Kennedy Cup Shield 1 Competition Quarter Finals. They played Roscommon on Tuesday evening and won 3 - 1. |
 |
|
On Wednesday June 14th they took on Kilkenny in the Shield 1 Quarter Final match and played brilliant football to win 4 - 0. On Thursday 15th June they defeated Clare 2 - 0 in the Shield 1 Semi-Final. The Final was played on 16th June, when we faced Mayo. It proved to be a tight affair with very little between the two sides. Unfortunately though, the Mayo side were to prevail, emerging on the right side of a close 2-1 scoreline.
Congratulations to all the players involved the manager, coaches, physio and all the parents who worked hard during the week as mentors to the team. |
© Arklow Town FC - www.arklowtownfc.com |
