Our U19’s were narrowly defeated 2-1 by Waterford FC today, in a highly entertaining encounter at Ferrycarrig Park. A first half own goal and a second half strike from substitute Basit Ishola were enough to hand the visitors all three points.
Both sides started lively and looked to assert themselves from the off. This led to a busy first half for O’Leary and Kavanagh in the Wexford and Waterford nets respectively. With not much to pick between the sides in the early exchanges, Wexford would have been disappointed by the manner in which the visitors took the lead, when a 13th minute corner resulted in an O’Leary own-goal.
Wexford responded well to that early set back and almost equalised from the reset, but for some astute goalkeeping by Kavanagh to deny Wasilewski as he attempted to round the Waterford shot stopper.
Just moments later an exquisite flick from Davies freed Holden on the left-flank. His cut back found the feet of Wasilewski, but some great last-ditch Waterford defending prevented him firing home the equaliser with a quarter of an hour gone.
At the other end O’Leary more than redeemed himself, denying Waterford on more than one occasion. Twice he spread himself big to prevent Waterford from doubling their lead and perhaps taking the game away from Wexford.
Despite some fine football and a couple of sights on goal, the final finish just evaded Wexford. Two dangerous deliveries from Sean Fitzpatrick, who had now switched flanks and was appearing on the left, fell just shy of a yellow jersey.
The second half did not promise quite as many goalscoring chances as the first. That was until just before the hour mark, when O’Leary made a fantastic stop with his outstretched foot to deny dangerman Flynn a crucial second Waterford goal.
In the 73rd minute the visitors did get their second. A loose pass out from the back was intercepted by the Waterford midfield eventually finding its way to the feet of substitute Ishola. His swivel and strike nestled into the back of the Wexford net past the outstretched dive of O’Leary.
Wexford did manage to halve the deficit in added time when Kavanagh mis-controlled a rather innocuous back pass resulting in the games second own-goal. Nonetheless it was a goal that the overall Wexford performance warranted. Waterford managed to see the game out and hang on for a 2-1 victory, in what was an end-to-end encounter at Ferrycarrig. Full-time score Wexford FC 1-2 Waterford FC.
Wexford FC: O’Leary, O’Toole, Davies (Howick, 75’), Russell, Curtis, Maher, Fitzpatrick, Lapite, Wasilewski (Fitzpatrick, 75’), O’Lionain, Holden.
Waterford FC; Kavanagh, Imiren, Mansfield, Grinius (McGrath, 56’), Desanctis, Warren (Carroll, 75’), McFadden, Adenopo, Dunwoody (Fennell, 68’), Flynn (Ishola, 68’), O’Sullivan (Miller, 75’).
Match Report by Ethan Lahiff
