The Trinity Junior Freshmen came off the worse against a very strong UCD team in the first soccer Colours match of the New Year. The UCD team relied on two second half goals from two of their scholarship beneficiaries to secure a comfortable 3-0 win.
UCD started the game the stronger with Kevin Dunne and Darren Muldonney both threatening from wide areas. Stiofan Sexton produced a good save from Trinity keeper Thomas Foster, after Dunne squared the ball following a good run. UCD continued to pressure the Trinity back four as the half developed, with centre forward Alan Sutton using his strength and speed to create problems.
The fortunate breakthrough for UCD came after a Muldonney corner was only half-cleared and volleyed superbly home by UCD captain Tomas O’Briain, after Foster couldn’t keep the ball out. It was a lead that UCD fully deserved.
Trinity continued to battle and eventually began to control proceedings as the first half continued. Steven Killeen played forward Dermot O’Sullivan in behind the UCD defence who forced a good save from UCD goalkeeper, Eric Barber. Killeen himself came close towards the end of a second half after just failing to latch on to a Faher Patil cross.
Neither team was really able to gain a foothold in the second half for long periods, as the rapid UCD counter-attacking kept the Trinity midfield from flowing forward in numbers. Trinity’s best chance came 10 minutes after the restart when Patil played Gus Stewart in who swivelled on the ball and forced a fantastic save from Barber in goal.
As they began to throw more men forward in order to equalize, gaps began to appear in the Trinity defence. UCD came close to capitalizing on these opportunities when Dunne and Sexton combined to force a fantastic double-save from Foster.
It continued to get worse for Trinity as, after another attack had broken down, UCD midfielder Niall Hanley carried the ball from the half-way line and smashed home from 30 yards.
A two goal deficit meant Trinity gambled by piling bodies forward towards the end of the game. But with the UCD subs wanting to make a big impression, Syed Ogunfora slid the ball through to Tristan Dent who calmly slid the ball home past Foster to wrap up a 3-0 win.
TCD coach John Hudson was pleased with the performance, considering the limited amount of time the squad has spent together. “It was a big step up for the lads today.” said Hudson “We haven’t had a lot of time playing together, and we came up against a good side who scored a couple of wonder goals. We were unlucky not to benefit from the good period we had towards the end of the first half.” The Soccer Freshmen will hope to erase this loss with a good performance in the Hanley cup next week in Maynooth.
Matthew Rye – Deputy Sports Editor
