Spot-on Duleek advance in Cup
BATTLING Duleek twice fought back from behind to get the better of WFTA on penalties following extra time and advance to the sixth round of the Leinster Junior Cup on Sunday.
Paddy Reilly's charges,. who trailed twice in their league game the previous week before eventually claiming a draw, once again showed their resilience and demonstratedwhy they are such a hard team to beat.
The Meath outfit gave a debut to new signing Sean Callaghan, signed from Abbey Celtic, and his display was another source of satisfaction.
Duleek also have a goalkeeper in Keith Martin who has a knack of saving penalties in a shootout and he produced one in this tie, and with WFTA also striking thepost with another of their spot kicks, converted penalties by Tony Andrews, Bryan Murphy, Sean Kennedy and Robbie Clarke ensured their run continues in the knockout competition.
WFTA had taken the lead on 15 minutes. A long kickout following a Duleek corner saw the ball take a vicious bounce, and goalkeeper Martin collided with a striker, conceded a penalty and collected a booking.
The home side converted the kick, but 15 minutes later Sean Kennedy cancelled out that goal. Good work down the right by Paul Dowd and Paddy Coates resulted in the latter squaring the ball to Kennedy to the right of goal and he deftly swung his shot into the far top corner of the net.
WFTA had the better of the exchanges in the second period, with Martin called upon to make a couple of excellent saves, while Duleek also had a couple of opportunities.
There were no further goals in normal time, but five minutes into the first period of extra time WFTA regained the lead with a near-post header from a corner kick.
But Duleek took only a few minutes to get back level again. Clarke played a lovely ball over the home defence to put in Paddy Coates and he made light of a difficult angle to score, chipping the keeper from the right corner of the box.
