Cobh

[ForzaForth]

As the scoreline suggests, very comfortable win for the home side in Cobh tonight against a Youths team which were much the inferior. Huge gulf in class, in particular, between the two sides going forward with Cobh's quartet of Deady, Meade, O'Neill and O'Flynn showing a level of cohesion which Youths didn't come near matching. Youths started with Graham, Clarkey, Crokey, Jamie, Corkey, Joey, Brian, Eric, Glenn, Deano and a very isolated Rocks up front. First chance fell to Glenn after seven when he got a shot away which went just wide. After ten, Jamie got a yellow for a tackle and graham had to tip over the resulting free. However, first goal for Cobh came after fifteen when the left-winger got into space down the left and pulled the ball back to the penalty spot where Meade slotted home for 1-0. Wexford then had two half-chances when Rocks shot wide and Glenn hit the outside of the post. Cobh had a free which then went just wide of the post and Birdsall picked up a mystery yellow when kicking the ball from his box. With ten to go, game was virtually over when Bhandarkhar smacked a free header home from a corner.

[ForzaForth]

Three later, it was 3-0 when Cobh attacker ran through the middle of the Youths defence to slot past Graham with ease. On the forty mark, Graham had a heavy touch on a pass-back and went into a 50-50 tackle with the closing Cobh attacker only to have the ball lob behind him and into the empty net for 4-0 at half-time. Shane Keegan sent the players back early for the second half which began with another mystery yellow for Brian Nolan after a few minutes. Rain then started with pitch becoming very slippy and further cards became a regular occurrence with both sides picking up cards. About half-way through the half, Deano was put through but Birdsall was able to touch his effort past the post for a corner. With five to go, more Cobh neat interplay inside the Wexford final third lead to Cobh's fifth which ended with the ball being touched past a diving Graham.

[ForzaForth]

Subs during the second half for the Youths were Shane Nolan and Craig McCabe for Eric and Clarkey. Wexford were largely second to the ball all night and this contributed to the heavy defeat. However, Shane Keegan needs to work out very quickly what Wexford are trying to do when they actually have the ball as, to me, this seemed to be the biggest problem on the night. Cobh will certainly have bigger tests than that posed by Wexford but they do look very potent up front. 5-0 to the home side at full-time.

[cornflakes]

Terrible performance. Our defence was worryingly bad and we put ourselves under pressure with some slack passing in our own half.

Need to improve quickly or it could be a long season