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With ultimate league honours just outside their grasp our Under 19's are still involved in the latter end of three cup competitions and they reached the semi-final of the Leinster U19 Cup this morning when they overturned an early season 1-5 league defeat away at the hands of Bangor Celtic with a fine 2-0 victory in Rathfarnam with goals from Levi Boardman and Charles Okoye to join Crumlin United, St Francis and Home Farm in the semi-finals.
The Under 12 SFAI Sketchers Norton Cup quarter-final against Middleton due to take place today at St Aidans at 2pm has been postponed due to a bereavement in the Middleton club, a new date is yet to be arranged. A trip to Kilkenny to play Evergreen await the winners in the semi-final.
Our Under 13's are through to a home semi-final meeting with Belvedere or St Josephs Boys following their 4-0 win in their quarter-final of the SFAI Sketchers Troy Cup away to Templeogue United in Tymon Park - early goals from Luke Browne and Kevin Zeffi were added to by Jamie Murphy and Byron Preston.
The final SKB team in action this weekend in the SFAI Cup were the Under 14 DDSL Premier team who played Shamrock Rovers at St Aidans in the quarter-final of the Sketchers Goodson Cup. This was a totally dominant performance with the home side 3-0 up at the break and they added four more in an equally one sided second half with Evan Ferguson and Ben Curtis both claiming hat-tricks and Somto Ajbaje also on the scoresheet to setup a semi-final trip to Mallow.
The 7.30am snow patrol last Monday which helped clear St Aidans pitch of 4-5 inches of snow was rewarded when both our teams involved in SFAI Cup quarter-finals put in excellent performances in bitterly cold windy conditions to reach the last four of the Under 12 SFAI Sketchers Norton and the Under 15 Sketchers Evans Cup.
In the first game our Under 11's played excellent football throughout against a well fancied Donacarney United team but just could not find a breakthrough that their play deserved. Extra time failed to produce a goal which led to a penalty shoot-out in which the standard of penalty taking by both teams was of the highest order. The sides were still level 4-4 at the end of the regulation five penalties and it was the home side who eventually prevailed 8-7 in the end.
In the semi-final they will be at home to either St Josephs Boys or Douglas Hall (Cork).
Peake Villa were the opposition to our Under 15's which was made up of players from our Under 13 and 14 squads but they proved equal to the task going two goals up inside the first 20 minutes through Evan Ferguson and might have had another goal or two - Jamie Mullins hitting the post - before a defensive mix-up allowed Peake Villa back into the game before half-time. 2.1
The second half saw Peake Villa come more into the game aided by a strong breeze but the SKB defence held firm and they should have added to the score-line with chances created on the break. The nearest Peake Villa came to equalising was when they struck the crossbar with 15 minutes to go.
Letterkenny Rovers will be their opponents in the semi-final after Easter at Shanowen Road..
