THE BIG KICK-OFF

IT HAS finally arrived ... and here are the fixtures:

September 02, Saturday 7A1:

AWAY to Phoneix FC. Meet at Clubhouse 9.30am SHARP.


September 03, Sunday 7A:

HOME to Malahide Utd. Meet at Ellenfield 09.45am SHARP

Squads for Season 2006/07

WITH just days to go before the start of the season, the two squads have been finalised:

SATURDAY A1:

Josh Anyaegbunam
Jordan Brady
Jamie Casserly
Adam Duffy
Robert Dunne
Robert Kane
Aaron Malone
Jamie O'Brien
Paul Pettigrew
Evan Ruddell

SUNDAY A

Ian Brunton
Cathal Culligan
Brandon Curtis
Conor Ennis
Sam Ennis
Joseph Manley
Harry O'Byrne
David O'Hanlon
Sean Ryan
Stein Sheridam

FINAL PRE-SEASON TRAINING

AS we await the first of the new season fixtures on Tuesday morning, we have TWO very important training sessions ahead of the weekend's kick-off.

Players are reminded to be on time, ready to commence training at the designated time.

MONDAY: Ellenfield 6.30pm SHARP

THURSDAY: Ellenfield 6.30pm SHARP

DOUBLE COMPLETED OVER RANGERS

St Kevins 8 Palmerstown Rangers 0

JOB done. Eight goals in the plus column - and a clean sheet. Roll on the new season next Staurday and Sunday, September 2/3. Coaching staff happy, all the players got a decent run and the parents seemed to enjoy it all.

But just a reminder - there is still much work ahead of us. Most players are now comfortable with the basic skills (passing, kicking etc). Now we must push on, continuing to work on the skills they have acquired, learning some new ones and developing an understanding and awareness of where they should be on the pitch.

Some have already begun to grasp the basics of team play - and it showed on Saturday with some, almost, improvised moves making the coaching staff redundant.

This was a different Palmerstown team than the one we faced last month. ey had no Under-8s in their squad for a start. But the recent spate of friendlies has also helped galvanise our group of players.

SQUAD: Brunton, Ellis C, Culligan, Malone, Ruddell, Anyaegbunam, Ryan, Manley, Dunne, Duffy, Sheridan, O'Hanlon.

BRANDON: I'LL BE BACK SOON

GREAT to see Brandon Curtis turn up to cheer on his teammates in Raheny this evening.

Brandon is recovering from a rather nasty training accident which left him with his right arm in plaster.

He is due back in hospital again on Tuesday when we hope he will have some good news.

His appearance at our match gave the management team the chance to get Brandon to put pen to paper and become the FIRST player to sign for our teams.

We all wish him a very speedy recovery.

TOO EASY FOR PAULS

St Pauls U-8s, 5 St Kevins 0

THE saying "a game of two halves" perfectly summed our efforts in this the latest of our pre-season friendlies.

A goal almost from the kick-off put St Kevins on the back foot but then some neat football, good approach work and some excellent shots as we drove forward let the opposition know that we hadn't come to make up the numbers.

Sean Ryan, with an excellent strike, was only denied by a super save, and almost immediately after the break Jamie Casserly saw another great effort saved.

Yet we seemed to lose interest after Pauls managed to score two quickfire goals. Our play became disjointed - and several players just decided they would rather be somewhere else!

Still, there was some very good things to take out of this game - and some suprisingly good performances. Onwards and upwards.

U7's LEAGUE 2006/2007

Last night, the DDSL released the league fromats for the coming season. All the coaches are happy with the places that we have been given. The format for the season is the following:

Each team is placed in a league of 6
We play each team home and away
At Christmas, after the 10games, there is promotion and relegation and in january we start in our new league and play again until April.


Effectively, it is 2 seasons in 1 year.

Saturday League U7 A1
Pheonix Fc
Portmarnock Fc
Shelbourne Fc
Stella Maris
St.Kevins Boys
Verona Fc

Sunday League U7 A
Home Farm
Malahide Utd
Stella Maris
St.Kevins Boys
Tolka Rovers
Verona Fc

Friendly v St.Pauls

Next up for us is an AWAY friendly against St.Pauls 8s. The game will be played this coming THURSDAY, August 17th. The game will be played on the same pitch that we played on the last time, so if anyone has only problems feel free to contact myself or Matt.

SKB WIN IN TOUGH BATTLE

The lads hit top class form today in our home friendly v Woodlawn, having had 11players today our team was a bit more balanced today. In what turned out to be a fairly physical and competitive pre-season friendly, the style and level of football at which our lads played just couldn't be matched, with 11 excellent performances from goalie Ian Brunton all the way to trialist Adam Duffy. Having gone into a 2-0 lead, with goals from Jamie Casserley and Sam Ennis there were signs of complacency creeping into the team, and these were confounded when a silly defensive mistake led to a goal for Woodlawn, making it 2-1. From here on in the game developed into a tough battle with many of our players being targeted for some more than strong tackles, in particular Joe Manley and Jordan Brady. However, as usual, and to the delight of the coaches and parents, our lads din't have to lower themselves to that sort of a battle, but instead kept playing the football that they can and finished out well in front at the full time whistle. The other 4 goals came from an excellent Sean Ryan run which he then smacked into the net, a Stein Sheridan cracker which went in just between the goalie's hand and the crossbar, a side-foot from close range for Robert Dunne who was just back from holiday and a great finish from 10yards out by trialist Adam Duffy. So in the end it turned out as an excellent 6-1 win, which adds to our excellent pre-season form, making it 4wins and 1loss from 5 games. We all just hope that this good form can carry on into the season.

PRE-SEASON GAME: SATURDAY 12th

This Saturday, August 12th, we will play our second home friendly, the visitors this time will be Woodlawn FC Under 7's. The game is due to kick off at 11am, we are meeting at 10-30am and as we only have the pitch for an hour from 11 it is important that we have all players in attendance from 10-30 so we can prepare properly. Hopefully we can have full participation from all parents and players, because as the season draws nearer we will have to start introducing the clubs own player code for the season which must be adhered to be all SKB players.

See you all at 10-30 on Saturday

THURSDAY 10th AUGUST

We will be in the park for 6:30 on thursday. All players are requested to bring their gear as there is a possibility of a friendly on Thursday. Following discussions between all coaches, the players have been informed of a new rule, which we hope will be implemented by parents too. As you are aware, there are demands in the park for space from the 20+ other teams who use it. It has been said to us in recent weeks about having so few players when starting training, then having players turning up late to join in as other teams have 15 or so players there when we are starting. So we have asked all players to inform their parents that, from now on, the time that is assigned to the players for training, is the time that we want training to begin, not the time that we want people to be arriving at.

So that means being there just 5 mins early will make all jobs a lot easier. We would appreciate if all parents could try their best to help us make this decision a successful one.

Many thanks,
Matthew, Rob, Paul and Fran

We would also like to wish a speedy recovery to Brandon Curtis who sustained a very bad injury to his arm after making another excellent block in defence. We hope that the injury is not as serious as first thought.

BANK HOLIDAY WEEKEND

Due to the long weekend it wasn't possible to arrange a friendly as many other teams are struggling with players away etc etc. So we will train this SUNDAY, August 6th, at 12pm. So players are expected to be in attendance at 11-50!!!