Precious gets a Bray winner
Old foe decides U-17 tie
A PRECIOUS Omochere goal downed Wexford for the second time in eight months as Bray Wanderers crept past the Ferrycarrig side in an evenly-contested SSE Airtricity League Southern Elite Division Under-17 game in Ferrycarrig Park on Saturday.
Wexford will remember Omochere for his heart-breaking injury-time goal in the Under-15 quarter-final back in October, and his first-half finish was enough to beat the Yellowbellies on this occasion too.
The home side will have regrets once again for their inability to put the ball in the net and for probably the third time this season they have come away from a game with less points than they deserved.
They certainly had the better of the opening half hour before Bray went one up, and realistically all that stopped them from taking an early two-goal advantage was the outstanding performance of Enda Minogue in Bray’s goal.
He denied Robert Bulmer at point-blank range from an early corner, but his double save in the 15th minute was as good as you will see in the Under-17 Airtricity League.
Again from a corner, Kevin Murphy rose highest only to be denied by a stunning one-handed save. Bulmer was alive to the cross that followed and it looked as if he had side-footed past the netminder, but the same right arm stretched out and tipped the ball to safety.
It was a miscued Kyle Scallan clearance which allowed Omochere to score the game’s only goal, but Bulmer went closer than ever seven minutes later when his header from Caellum Travers-Devlin’s cross beat Minogue and came cannoning back off the post.
Wexford seemed to lose some belief after half-time and, while Bulmer still looked the most dangerous, he failed to direct any meaningful efforts on target.
Bray were happy to sit on their lead and created very little.
The Model county side made a raft of changes in the hope of inspiring another turnaround but it never came.
They may have reason to feel hard done by when Gavin Keyes failed to award a penalty for clear contact on Travers-Devlin in injury time.
The game ended in a red mist when Roland Idowu was given a straight red card for a punch on Wexford’s Kevin Murphy.
Murphy himself and Cian Walsh of Bray Wanderers were also both handed reds for their parts in the melee which followed.
Wexford F.C.: Aaron Hall; Shane Gibson, Kyle Scallan (capt.), Kevin Murphy, Seán O’Brien-Murphy; Luke Greene, Caellum Travers-Devlin, Ethan O’Neill, Seán Smithers, Robert Bulmer; Brody Murphy. Subs. - Graham O’Reilly for O’Neill (61), Darragh Levingston for Smithers (65), Killian Griffin for O’Brien-Murphy (77), Brian Byrne for Greene (77), James Dowling for Murphy (81), also Seán Maher, Cillian McDonald.
Bray Wanderers: Enda Minogue; Cian Walsh, Cian Maher, Alex Rafferty (capt.); Glen Hollywood, Evan Dunne, Daniel Madaghjian, Steven Sweeney, Aaron Rice; Precious Omochere, Jake Ellis. Subs. - Byran O’Gorman for Omochere (43), Eoin Darcy for Ellis (59), Roland Idowu for Hollywood (83), also Conor Dowling, Panit O’Keeffe, Nikolay Borowiec, Jamie Crilly.
Referee: Gavin Keyes (Waterford).