Avenue march on in Munster Youths Cup

Avenue United 2   Clonmel Town 1

Avenue United and Clonmel Town served up a cracking contest in the Munster Youths Cup tie at Lees Road on Saturday when the home side booked a place in the quarter-finals, with a merited win.
The visitors enjoyed the better of the early exchanges with Colman Kennedy and Kevin Fahy impressing in midfield and it took resolute defending on the part of Dean D’Auria and Paddy O’Malley to keep the game scoreless.
Clonmel had the best chance of the half when Kieran Browne forced a fine save from Nathan Murray. The game was scoreless at half-time.
In the second half, Avenue came more into the game and Sean Corry and Dara Kerin got a grip on proceedings while Michael Gallagher caused problems for the visitors’ defence.
Avenue took the lead 10 minutes into the second half when Dara Kerin found the net after Conor O’Brien’s effort rebounded off the post.  As Avenue pressed for a second goal, Evan Comerford made a good save from Gallagher.
The Avenue defence was caught off guard shortly after this when Cathal McGeever got through to head home an equaliser.
Both goalkeepers made smart saves as both teams went in search of a lead score.
What proved to be the winning goal came 15 minutes from time. A free kick from Paddy O’Malley was flicked on by Donal O’Halloran and superbly finished by Michael Gallagher. Avenue piled on the pressure and Conor O’Brien forced an excellent save from Comerford in the visitors’ goal. At the other end, Murray had to be sharp to save from Kevin Fahy.
Avenue held out for a merited win, which was well handled by referee John Murray and his assistants Trevor White and Julian Stanford.
Avenue United: Nathan Murray; Dean D’Auria, Luke Hayes, Donal O’Halloran, Paddy O’Malley; Nicky Twumasai, Sean Corry, Dara Kerin, Conor O’Brien, Eanna Fennell, Michael Gallagher.
Subs: Gary Roche, Simon McDonagh, Segun Junaid.

FAI Youths Cup
This week the attention switches to the FAI Youths Cup fourth round in which Avenue will take on Charleville at the North Cork club’s venue this Saturday at 2pm in a fourth-round tie.