Brave Donegal Town fall short as Abbeyfeale advance to SFAI National Cup semi-final

Donegal Town FC bowed out of the SFAI U-15 National Cup after a 2-0 defeat to Limerick outfit Abbeyfeale United at the Hospital Field on Sunday afternoon.  

In what was a finely balanced contest across the 70 minutes of play, it was a quickfire first-half double from the visitors that made the difference, scoring twice in the space of two minutes to see them over the line.  

The game’s first serious opportunity fell to the Limerick men on 17 minutes. A quick break down the right wing from Leon O’Connor concluded with the attacker cutting in and firing goalwards only to be denied by a superb block.  

The ball went out for an Abbeyfeale corner which sparked the quarter-final’s opening goal. Kyle Smith swung in an inviting delivery which was met with a bullet header from Ashton Kelly to give his side an early advantage.  

Just two minutes later, their lead was doubled following a fantastic strike from Leon O’Connor. The ball bounced nicely in front of the Abbeyfeale forward who let fly from distance and saw his effort go over the head of Dylan Byrne and into the back of the net.  

The hosts responded very well to this setback however. They began to apply pressure on the Abbeyfeale backline with the attacking duo of Ethan Wasson and Iarla Cassidy looking particularly threatening, but they kept the Donegal Town men at bay to maintain their two-goal cushion at the break.  

The home side began the second stanza in a similar fashion to how they concluded the first, on the front foot. The pressure applied on the Limerick men continued to increase with Donegal Town searching for a goal to pull them back into this encounter.  

A number of dangerous balls were swung into the box by the Donegal Town’s creative players but the Abbeyfeale back four and goalkeeper continued to deal with everything thrown at them.  

On the hour mark, the home side came close to halving the deficit. Odhran Plunkett claimed possession before firing from distance but goalkeeper Will O’Hanlon denied him with a good save to preserve his clean sheet.  

With two minutes left on the clock, the Treaty men nearly netted their third of the afternoon against the run of play. A well-weighted through ball found the run of Liam Brosnahan but Dylan Byrne produced a fine stop to keep his side’s hopes alive.  

The hosts continued to battle till the end however, it wasn’t to be as referee John Shields called an end to proceedings to mark Abbeyfeale United’s passage through to the last four of the SFAI National Cup.  

Donegal Town FC: Dylan Byrne; Cameron Crawford, Daire O’Donnell, Aiden Molloy, Ruairi Meehan, Senan Gallagher (Tom Erskine, 60), Conall Parsons, Jay Cullen, Iarla Cassidy (Josh Brennan, 46), Odhran Plunkett, Ethan Wasson. 

Abbeyfeale United: Will O’Hanlon; Richard Tobin (Ronan Magner, 46), Tomas Fitzgerald, Jamie McAuliffe, Jack O’Connor (Joseph Lineham, 67), Paddy Sobczack, Ashton Kelly, Alex Collins, Kyle Smith (Kian Brosnahan, 35), Leon O’Connor, Joey O’Connor.