Last-gasp draw felt almost as good as a win
Wednesday August 25 2010
SOMETIMES YOU wake up and feel a positive notion lurking in the subconscious which you can't identify. And then, oh yes, Sunday's game, a 92nd minute equaliser against Shelbourne.
The Shelbourne who just a few years ago were one goal away from the Champions League group stage, going out to Deportivo La Coruna. Oh God, how sweet is an injurytime equaliser, almost as good as a 1-0 win.
The odds were against us - Shane Dempsey suspended, Chris Kenny, Aidan McCann and Shane Nolan injured, Danny Furlong, Shane Sinnott and Gareth McCurtin omitted from the starting line-up for disciplinary reasons, Jimmy Keohane in Bristol and David Breen gone to more lucrative pastures. But we are the Wexford Youths and in came four Under-19s in the form of Martin Kehoe, Muzzi Mullen, Ben Ryan and Robert Dempsey, and a 22-year-old veteran called Daniel Flynn.
We played good football, we played with discipline and organisation, we played with passion and played to the final whistle. It added to the achievement that we got a result despite being poorly treated by referee, Graham Kelly. I'm still paying the price for my decision to write a letter of complaint about the same individual earlier in the season. But no one ever said life would be fair - injustice is hardly confined to the playing field. No matter, Sunday, August 22, was a good day for the Wexford Youths.
I had almost forgotten that in an earlier life, sorry, 24 hours earlier, I was gutted to lose an Under-20 game 1-0 to Waterford, an 80th minute penalty. A good, closely-fought game in which we missed a penalty ourselves. Playing six Under-17s doesn't make it easy - Philip Murphy, Aidan Lehane, Ian Sinnott, Darren Foley, Rioghan Crosbie and Joe Keohane all playing and doing well.
It should be noted that local referee Andrew Mullally was excellent on the day. The 20's tournament this season was always about developing the younger players but it still doesn't make losing any more pleasant. I must admit that I felt better after our 1-0 win at the Carlisle Grounds against Bray Wanderers on Wednesday night, a real gutsy, honest performance, when the team was even younger - more Under-17s in the form of Craig McCabe, Seaf`án Allen and Denis Murray, and nepotism got a chance to raise its head when I played my 16-year-old son, Joseph Barry Wallace, for his Wexford Youths debut.
Forgive me if it gave me incredible pleasure, I do realise that it sounds dangerous if Mick Wallace thinks he has a son who might make a decent footballer. But it would be good, wouldn't it?
- MICK WALLACE
