Spurs Spanked (Academy Round-Up)

It’s not every day you beat the top prospects of an English Premier League club, but the Waterford FC academy did it when they overcame Tottenham Hotspur 3-2 at Fota Island Resort on Saturday. The Spurs youngsters had spent the week in Cork preparing for their new season and coach Jamie Carr, from Dublin, organised this challenge game with his Waterford counterparts with the Blues Under-20s having a week off from league action.

Waterford won in style, too, with three stunning strikes from distance. Spurs took the lead after eleven minutes through Ezra Agyekum, but the Blues regained parity with a vicious 24th-minute strike by Orion Cala from twenty yards created by Filip Wasilewski’s darting run down the right. Spurs went ahead again on 32 minutes with Agyekum scoring his second and it remained 2-1 to the Londoners at the break. 

Eleven minutes into the second half, the Blues were level when Cala burst down the left and set up Romeo Lapite to smash home from outside the box and they took the lead five minutes later. Right back Aaron Brennan, excellent throughout, drove in the winning goal - again from outside the box – when he ran onto a ball from the left and drilled his shot in low off the far post. 

Jack Garrett was denied a fourth by a great clearance off the line after he rounded the goalkeeper and Peter Byrne went close late in the game. It was a terrific performance from the whole squad with Fidel Pululu (main photo above) standing out with an excellent showing after his two-goal heroics last weekend and both goalkeepers – Igor Bacela and Conor Murphy – making one world-class save each.

 

Debutants Jesse Julian, Fionn Fell and Theo Stamper

Meanwhile, the Under-23s had a big win in the Women’s Development League on Sunday - beating Cork City 3-0 at SETU Arena. Kate Tomkins opened the scoring after just six minutes from a ball by Sarah Abullo and Waterford took complete control with two goals in three minutes early in the second half. First, Tomkins created a goal for Emma Bibby in the 50th minute and then Bibby passed for Eva O’Gorman to score her sixth in the last three matches and give the Blues a commanding lead that they held to the finish.

There was more success for the girls on Saturday as the Under-17s went to Cobh and came away with a 2-0 win at St Colman’s Park. Rachael Duff gave the Blues an early lead (again, it was in the sixth minute) from a Kate Dalton pass. That was Duff’s third goal in four matches and she is creating plenty of goals for others too. Jodie Roche netted a 53rd-minute penalty – scoring for the third game in a row – and Waterford saw out the rest of the game comfortably enough. That’s now three wins in succession for John MacLean’s surging 17s. 

The Blues Under-14s staged a gritty comeback at Carriganore on Sunday, but fell just short in the end. Losing by four to Cobh Ramblers (including a hat-trick for Adam Ahern), Waterford fought back impressively in the final third of the game with Callum O’Sullivan scoring in the 66th minute directly from a pass by goalkeeper Jack Clarke before Rian Roche added another after 73 minutes when assisted by Jesse Julian. Three minutes later, Julian (newly-arrived from St Michael’s of Tipperary) scored his first goal for the club and set up an exciting finish to the match when Waterford went close, but couldn’t quite complete the turnaround and it ended 4-3 to Cobh. Julian was one of three debutants on the day along with Theo Stamper from Tramore AFC and Fionn Fell of Ferrybank who joined after excellent showings in the recent Kennedy Cup.

Finally, the Under-15s, who qualified for the elite stages and are facing the biggest clubs on a weekly basis, fell to a 4-1 defeat to Bohs at the Arena despite leading at half time through an own goal.