Killavilla are up there with the best in girls football

By Thomas Conway

As the full-time whistle finally sounded on an absorbing SFAI Under-14 National Cup Final on Saturday, the emotional juxtaposition between both sets of players couldn’t have been clearer.

The Greystones girls were elated - they jumped for joy and showered their coaches with pretend champagne from their water bottles, embracing family and friends on the sidelines and near the pitch. Amid that sea of celebration lay countless broken bodies - the Killavilla players sprawled out on the surface, disconsolate, dejected, and utterly exhausted from their efforts.

Sport can bring immeasurable joy, but it can also inflict cruel blows. This might only have been an Under-14 final. These girls may only be young teenagers with years of football ahead of them. But that shouldn’t diminish the significance of this occasion. It was a National Final, an All-Ireland decider, and it meant more to those sets of players than perhaps anything else in their young lives.

In the end the result was fair. Greystones were the better side - not by a distance or anything like that. But they were refined and experienced enough to strike late on, with two goals in the final ten minutes - a last gasp escape akin to what Real Madrid have been doing in the Champions League for years now.

In many ways Killavilla’s manager Pio Fitzpatrick was heartbroken, but he was also immensely proud of what this group of players has achieved. He knew Villa would be up against it, and he felt they battled bravely, even if the result refused to fall in their favour.

“I think we gave a good account of ourselves. I think the occasion itself and the weather probably got the better of us, in the last fifteen minutes in particular,” he admitted.

“We ran out of a bit of steam I think. And as well as that, the strength of their panel - the players that they brought on were just as good as the players that they were taking off, so that was another factor.”

Greystone’s strength in depth was certainly key but is it any wonder the Wicklow club has such a reserve of talent at their disposal. They are, after all, the primary footballing force in the Garden County, and, as Pio explains, they ply their trade in Dublin, against some of the country’s finest sides. In effect, this was a suburban giant taking on a humble rural challenger. The outcome should have been painfully one sided. It wasn’t.

“Greystones have a huge, huge pick,” he added.

“There’s actually no girls’ soccer in Wicklow, so they’re playing in the DDSL (Dublin District Schoolgirls League), and I’d imagine any girl that’s any good in Wicklow is going to be playing with them. So, they effectively have a pick of whoever they want inside the Wicklow area and that’s a huge advantage, especially when you compare them to a fairly small rural club like us.

“So, it’s still a fair achievement for us, for a small club from North Tipp to go head to head against Greystones - who are linked in with Bray in the League of Ireland. So, we’re really punching above our weight.”

Where next for Killavilla? It’s been a rollercoaster year. This National Cup campaign has seen them traverse the Irish countryside, playing a host of different teams from Evergreen itself (where this finals day was held) to Bunratty/Cratloe of Clare. It has been one hell of a journey, a wild adventure that has benefited the team and panel immensely in terms of playing experience and overall development. All the way through it, from start to finish, they’ve wanted to play football, and that’s exactly what they’ve done. It hasn’t always been easy.

Not every club has pitches as pristine and perfect as Villa’s own homeplace in Roscrea. But they overcame those challenges. Saturday didn’t go their way, but something tells you this won’t be the last time this particular team is seen knocking around the business end of a national competition. The future is bright.

“You could not have asked of any more of those girls,” added the Killavilla manager.

“Each and every time we played in the National Cup, they all turned up, they all performed, they all went out and played football. Because that’s the way we train. We want to keep the ball on the ground, we want to play football. And in fairness to Greystones, they were the same.

“That final on Saturday could just have been a long ball game, with each team kicking it long and hoping for the best. But both teams went out and tried to play soccer. And look, our girls were nervous, and we probably didn’t play as much soccer as we wanted to play, but we still tried our hearts out.”