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UCFL Div. 3
21 April 2012

Terenure FC 3rds 1 - 0 Siemens

Before I get to our shield hopes, there's another league game to catch up on. Title chasing Siemens paid a visit to Bushy Park in another game I missed through injury and were sent home with nothing but a huge blow to their chances of winning the league. Padraig Conlon was the goal scoring hero, and from what I'm told the defence put in a tremendous display. The win was a good boost to the teams confidence going into our remaining games.

UCFL Div. 3 Shield
05 May 2012

Terenure FC 3rds 5 - 2 Three Trout Rovers

With so many games called off recently due to the rotten weather everyone was relieved just to be taking to the field on Saturday. The lack of games had worked somewhat in my own favour as it meant I hadn't missed too many games in my five weeks out and I was ready to come off the bench in this one. Three Trout's last visit to Bushy was a memorable one for them as they recorded a first ever win, and it was one that we didn't want to repeat.
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UCFL Div. 3 Shield
11 April 2012

Dollymount FC 2 – 3 Terenure FC 3rds

Still out with injury I declined the midweek trip to one of my least favourite football pitches and thankfully my absence brought the lads some luck. Dollymount have been a constant thorn in our side since we landed in division 3 and this was a first win over them at the fifth attempt. Manager/Goalkeeper Niall McCall saved a penalty at a key stage of the game that probably went a long way to securing the win while Graham Maher produced another two goals to bring his personal tally to 7 goals in his last 6 games and 8 from 9 starts for the season. The 3rd goal was an O.G. although I’m told Noel O’Brien is desperately trying to claim it. The win means there’s still a chance we can make the shield final, but we can’t afford to drop any points and need Phoenix to slip up against either Dollymount or Dundrum.
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I was glad the blog was unavailable for the last while because it meant I could put off writing a report on our last couple of games. Our recent good run has come to a crashing halt and we've left ourselves with little to play for until the end of the season.

UCFL Div. 3
24 March 2012

Terenure FC 3rds 3 – 6 Arthur Griffith Park FC 2nds

In the weeks before this game I was talking about the huge difference a settled back four has made to us and with two of those four missing on Saturday it was more evident than ever. AGP looked dangerous every time they attacked as they countered at speed and their six goals in no way flattered them. Yet we had chances and fought back from 3-0 down at half time to 3-2 and then 4-3 but each time we got within a goal we gifted one straight back. We were too gung ho when we should have been looking to keep our composure with AGP suddenly finding themselves under pressure but we didn't do it, having learned nothing from a similar comeback against Siemens earlier in the season.
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UCFL Div. 3
10 March 2012

Terenure FC 3rds 1 – 0 Dundrum Town FC

The true value of a settled defence really shone through in this very tight game as few chances were created by either side and we came away with three points. Too often this season we have been on top in games and given away sloppy goals but the defence has been excellent recently and they won out here when Dundrum were good value for at least a draw on the balance of play.
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UCFL Div. 3
03 March 2012

Dollymount FC 1 - 1 Terenure FC 3rds

Where to start? For the first time this season we started with the same keeper, central defence, central mid-field and strike force, we were full of confidence after a good win over Castle and Dollymount have struggled all season. All the omens were good, except this was Dollymount and we've never beaten them, in fact they embarrassed us 5-0 in this fixture last season and beat us 2-0 at home this season, despite their struggles against everyone else. The game started fairly well for us as we maintained possession well and pushed Dollymount back from the start. The pitch was in atrocious condition and wasn't really conducive to the football we wanted to play but we stuck with it and started to create chances. Graham Maher was pulled up on a couple of very close offside decisions and I looped a header over the bar from a good Gary Clarke cross. Dollymount rarely threatened at all in the first half as they seemed content to defend and look for set pieces in our half when they managed to clear up-field.
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UCFL Div. 3
25 february 2012

Terenure FC 3rds 3 – 0 Castle Celtic 2nds

What a difference four weeks make. Following on from the humiliation against Three Trout came probably our best performance of the season against Castle Celtic, a convincing three nil win and only a second clean sheet of the season (by coincidence against the same opposition). From the moment we arrived in Bushy Park there was a palpable sense of desire about all the lads, the pain of the last game was still hanging over the squad and this was the first opportunity to relieve some of the pent up anger and frustration. Even the warm-up had more than the usual sense of urgency as everyone looked sharp, we were well aware that Castle might be expecting us to start slowly, coming off a long break and a bad defeat, but we were determined to start well.
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UCFL Div. 3
21 January 2012

Terenure FC 3rds 0 – 3 Three Trout Rovers

Done up like a kipper. Slapped in the face with a wet fish. The fishy smell around Bushy Park last Saturday was almost certainly emanating from our stinking performance. We went into the game on the back of two league wins in a row, looking at getting into the promotion race and pulling well away from relegation troubles, Three Trout hadn’t won a game in their short history and arrived in Bushy with a record of played 14 won 0 drawn 1 lost 13. On paper a comfortable win was on the cards, but football isn’t played on paper, it’s played in gale force winds, on mucky pitches, in January, and anything can happen.
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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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