Must-win tie for U-18s

THE WEXFORD Football League Under-18s are preparing for a must-win clash on Saturday, when they travel to Cork for their final group game in the FAI Youth Inter-League Cup.

Both sides have a win and a draw to their name coming into the tie, with Wexford beating Limerick 3-0 and drawing 2-2 with the Waterford League, while Cork overcame the Shannonsiders 4-0 and drew 0-0 with Waterford.

Wexford need a victory to ensure qualification for the knockout stages, and manager Pádraig Whitty is confident that his charges can get the job done.

‘We’re going into the game knowing a win is the only way to guarantee going through. It’s a tight group. If we draw we could go out undefeated.

‘We’re fairly confident. We’ve a really strong team this year and we’re going down hoping to win,’ he said.

Whitty has plenty of reason to be optimistic with key players performing well at present.

Captain Ethan Vickers from Gorey Rangers continues to impress, while Dylan O’Brien scored a hat-trick for North End United on Saturday and Ciarán Murphy from Ferns has been doing well of late, as well as Michael Carroll, who will be playing his last game before switching his attentions to the League of Ireland.

Wexford will play the Wicklow Youths in Arklow tomorrow night (Wednesday) at 8 p.m. as they finalise their preparations ahead of Saturday’s crunch tie.