Yeats girls make history
THEY came, they saw, they conquered. A group of girls from a small club in the Northwest of Ireland showed top opponents from Italy and America to name a few that they can compete with the best. Yesterday evening, the Yeats U16 Girls returned home to Rathcormac, tired but in extremely jubilant form after making history by reaching the final of the prestigious tournament where they were beaten by Italian side Azalee in Saturday’s final.
The highest they had reached before that was eighth out of twelve so to jump to second out of twelve was an incredible feat.
Speaking to the Sligo Champion ahead of the journey home yesterday afternoon, coach Brian Chambers was understandably in jubilant form.
He said: “We are all on a high, it’s been absolutely fantastic and everyone is over the moon.
“The girls have been getting so many messages of support and congratulations from people back home throughout the tournament, which really meant a lot.
“They were brilliant, couldn’t have asked for more from them, their performances were splendid and the effort was brilliant espe- cially taking into account the hot conditions.
“They just kept on pushing and played some brilliant football,” he said.
Brian said the quality of football was sensational.
“There were so many amazing performances and the whole tournament exceeded our expectations, far beyond.
“You have a big hope before the competition that you will finish in the top half and get into the A draw, we’d only ever been in the B draw before this, that’s where we had always been.”
The Yeats girls this year broke all previous expectations, winning all three of their group games.
“We won the group, which was fantastic and then we were into the quarter finals.
“That alone exceeded our expectations and the girls wanted to push on from there.
“We lost the quarter final but we went through as the best loser from the group and we then faced the same team, Tabiago in the semi-final.
“We beat them 3-1 which we should have done in the first game, it was a big physical fight and then we were through to the final.
“We were playing Azalee in that on Saturday and they are from Milan. They are a great, great team and the girls all got on really well with them too.
“Azalee won 4-0 and I suppose it might look like a hammering but in fairness, our girls couldn’t prevent them from coming at them as they had dead legs and they were well used to the conditions compared to us.
“With the direct sunlight, it was very draining to play in, two of our games were played in 35 degrees, really hot.
“The final was not as hot as it was in the morning. There was a great atmosphere as it was held in the San Marino stadium, a big seater stadium, so it was great for the girls to get the experience of playing there.
“The girls did fantastically, the highest we had come before that was eighth out of twelve so to finish runners-up was amazing.
“Seeing our name second on the table with so many Italian teams, it was something else,” Brian added. “We are thrilled and so, so proud,” he said.
Margaret Regan, mother of our captain Sinead, organised the homecoming in Rathcormac to welcome the girls back to North Sligo. There was a large crowd at the national school in the village to congratulate the Yeats girls.