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UCFL Div. 3
14 January 2012

Terenure 3rds 5 – 2 Phoenix FC

It’s been a while since I’ve done a match report and I’ve missed our last two games so we’ll start with them.

On the 3rd of December we played Dundrum in Dodder Valley looking to end a seven game run without a win in normal time. With Dundrum hovering around mid-table like ourselves it was pretty much do or die and to make matters worse I was watching from the line, struggling with injury once again. The lads put in a great battling performance in windy, Arctic like conditions and went into half time 2 – 0 to the good, John Tierney and Noel O’Brien with excellent finishes doing the business.
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Right, hopefully you've got the old "Sports Stadium" theme and anthemic Europe hair-metal masterpiece running around in your head after reading the title and I can move on with this blog entry. The final countdown of course refers to the eagerly anticipated new UCFL season (well I'm excited at least) which kicks of this Saturday.

Pre-season has gone pretty well from a personal perspective, it couldn't have been worse than last year when I broke down in the second week and didn't make it back until our third game, I've played in all the friendlies and despite not making it to the level of fitness I'd really like it's still a million times better than any stage last year.
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UCFL Div. 3
19 November 2011

Siemens 7 – 3 Terenure 3rds

This is one game I’d rather not have to think of ever again. After a decent opening few minutes we suddenly completely forgot how to play football and allowed Siemens to take over the game. Defensively we were a shambles, the back four, including myself, playing like we’d never been even seen a football before, never mind actually kicked one. We were 2-0 down and could hardly have a complaint, but we pulled it back to 2-1 following a lovely run and back heel from Paddy McCauley to Robbie Furlong who smashed his shot to the net. That should have been the point where we found our feet in the game again but we still hadn’t learned any lessons in defence and before half time we were 4-1 down.
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UCFL Div. 3
05 November 2011

Terenure 3rds 0 - 2 Dollymount

I think I'll keep this one short and sweet seeing as it was over a week ago now. Dollymount have struggled for numbers for a lot of games this season, but we knew from experience that they are strong when they get a full team together and they seem to love playing us. Sure enough they arrived in Bushy with a full squad and they started the game well. We were struggling to deal with their 3-5-2 formation in the early stages and they looked to be the better side, but we gradually got a hold of the game and from about fifteen minutes in we were getting on top. Without Paddy McCauley we've struggled for goals this season and so it proved again as we failed to convert any of our pressure into goals.
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UCFL Div. 3
29 October 2011

Arthur Griffith Park 2nds 4 – 4 Terenure 3rds

A four all draw for our fourth drawn game of the season wasn't what we were hoping for on Saturday morning. AGP 2nds have struggled since coming into the league and we were looking at this as a must win game, but didn't perform up to the standards required. Injuries and late withdrawals left us seriously depleted and we started with the bare eleven, including a keeper playing for the first time since breaking his leg, our own manager and the 2nd team's manager. Even with those set back's, and another adventure trying to find a pitch, we started brightly and took the lead inside the first ten minutes, despite playing against a gale force wind. AGP failed to clear a ball into their box and Paraig finished to the net after a bit of a scramble. Shortly afterwards he was unlucky not to double the lead with a nearly identical chance as the keeper saved well.
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This was a game I was looking forward to after the penalty miss debacle in the shield semi-final last season. Unfortunately I hadn't recovered enough from injury to play but I still intended on being there to support the lads and act as an emergency sub. Sadly for me fate was against me and I woke up with some sort of bug on Saturday morning and failed to make it out from under the duvet.

Luckily for us all Gary "Hollywood" Revins played through his own injury troubles and after a little persuasion agreed to reprise his cameo role as match reporter. He swears he's never doing it again so I'll have to make sure I make the game this weekend.
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This weeks match report comes courtesy of the "Templmore Terrier", Gary Revins, after I was forced to miss the game through injury. I'd like to thing the result would have been a bit better if I was there! Thanks to Gary for the effort, I might get him to do the reports every week after this.

UCFL Bedlow Cup
Harding FC 2nds 3 - 0 Terenure FC 3rds

08 October 2011

Well done to Harding FC 2nds. They either belong in Division 3 with us or we belong in Division 3B with them. It could also show there is no difference in standard between all teams in the whole 3rd Division of the UCFL. The results will show Harding won both halves, 1-0 and 2-0 respectively. I guess it’s a very simple game at the end of the day, just score more. We know we can score so when we went 1-0 down, it wasn’t the end of the world. But I suppose the test of any team is to quickly dust themselves off, get back into formation and make sure we keep the ball long enough to score.
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Concern Worldwide are happy to announce the launch of our football tournament for 2011: SOCCER FOR SOMALIA!

SIGN UP NOW!!Teams will compete in our World Cup style tournament.
Your fundraising contribution will help us fight the drought in Somalia!!
Each team is guaranteed 4 ...

UCFL Div. 3
01 October 2011

Grant City 2 – 2 Terenure 3rds

With rain pouring down Friday night and all Saturday morning I was expecting a text to tell us the game was off, but no, somehow the drainage in Marley Park was keeping the pitches playable and monsoon or not the game was on. On arrival the pitch was in remarkably good condition and apart from the grass being a little bit long there was nothing to hinder a good game of football. With the two teams close together in the table this had the makings of a tight game and that’s how it played out.
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UCFL Div. 3
17 September 2011

Terenure 3rds 0 – 2 AFC Justice

This was a hugely disappointing result for us as we came into the game knowing Justice were a strong side and that we’d need to be at our best to get a result. Unfortunately we started the game very slowly and found ourselves under pressure for the first twenty minutes. This early spell eventually produced a goal for Justice, when a shot from outside the box deceived our keeper and hit the net. It was hard to argue that it wasn’t deserved and it at least seemed to wake us from our slumber as we started to get into the game.
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UCFL Challenge Cup
10 September 2011

Terenure 3rds 0 – 1 St Canices


When you get drawn against a team four divisions above you (Division 1) in the cup all you can really hope for is a good performance and that’s what we gave against St Canices on Saturday. The blustery day made it difficult for both sides to play football and that lead to a tight and scrappy encounter. St Canices marginally had the edge throughout the game, without creating too many chances, and for a long time it looked like it was destined to end in extra-time, before a hopeful ball over the top caught in the wind and broke kindly for the Canices’ centre forward to finish coolly with 15 minutes to play. A sending off for a second yellow reduced us to 10 men, shortly after, and that made a comeback just too much to manage.

The first half of the game only produced a couple of clear chances to Canices, the best resulted in Noel O’Brien making a spectacular save that ended in a collision with the post and a very bruised ear. We were looking to catch Canices on the counter attack and Graham’s movement up front caused them a few problems, but we never really troubled their goalkeeper.
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UCFL Div. 3
03 September 2011

Three Trout Rovers 1 – 3 Terenure 3rds

A nice spin down the M50 and onto the N11 brought us to Charlesland on the outskirts of Greystones for a first encounter with the creatively named Three Trout Rovers (apparently there’s a river in the locality called the Three Trout). TTR are new to the league so it was hard to know what to expect, we did know that they had lost their first game of the season, which meant this was already a must win game if we had real title ambitions.

The game started well for us as we pressed TTR back into their half from the kick off and they struggled to get out of it for long spells. TTR looked like a team still finding their feet in eleven-a-side football as we dominated the aerial battle, their keepers long high goal kicks played right into our hands as they lacked a physical presence up front to win them and out centre backs cleaned up. TTR also lost their left winger after a nasty looking clash of heads and it didn’t aid their cause.
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UCFL Div. 3
27 August 2011

Castle Celtic 2nds 0 – 0 Terenure 3rds

And we’re back. Not exactly back with a bang, but back with a solid performance, a point and a clean sheet. The match reports might take a while to get going this year, with so many new players in the squad I’m having problems remembering all the names and I haven’t got a clue on most of the surnames. Considering we have such a new team and we were missing a number of regulars from pre-season it was nice to take home a point from our first league game. It might have been three with a bit of luck as we had a penalty saved in the second half, but on overall balance a draw was probably fair.
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Right, hopefully you've got the old "Sports Stadium" theme and anthemic Europe hair-metal masterpiece running around in your head after reading the title and I can move on with this blog entry. The final countdown of course refers to the eagerly anticipated new UCFL season (well I'm excited at least) which kicks of this Saturday.

Pre-season has gone pretty well from a personal perspective, it couldn't have been worse than last year when I broke down in the second week and didn't make it back until our third game, I've played in all the friendlies and despite not making it to the level of fitness I'd really like it's still a million times better than any stage last year.
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