Roche U17s welcomed the Gaels to Pairc de Roiste on Friday evening for their next round of the Regional League. Both teams were without their County players and a few injuries disrupted team selection but nonetheless two strong teams took to the pitch.

The visitors started the brighter with Liam O Connor causing the home defence problems and had a few points on the board before Luke O Connell registered Roche’s first score with a well taken point. 

The game was finely balanced but hard endeavour from midfield pair of Ryan Martin and Sean Connolly began to tilt the balance towards the lads from Castleroche. Great teamwork culminated in tidy scores from Fionn Connolly, Ryan Martin and O Connell again but unfortunately a well worked goal from the Dundalk men had the scores tied at half time.Roche regained their composure with netminder Ozzie Nash exuding calmness with his pinpoint distribution ably helped by the tigerish defending of Conor Callan and the lung bursting runs from defence by James Corcoran.The Gaels never gave up and with the  match tied with seconds remaining, up stepped man of the match Sean Conlon to notch the winning score with his wand of a left peg to leave him with the incredible personal tally of 9 points.Final Score: Roche 0.14 Gaels 1.10.

Next match is away to Cooley at 6.45 on Tuesday.