Courtesy: FAI Futsal Portal


FAI National Futsal League week one

WHILE Ronan O’Gara was preparing to tackle the French at Croke Park on Saturday his younger brother Tiernan had his own challenge – helping Bray Wanderers make their mark in the FAI National Futsal League.

Tiernan, who plays football with St Joseph’s Boys, was a scorer for Wanderers in their shock 3-2 win over Sporting Fingal at DCU.

Sporting are one of the most experienced sides in the domestic league with top class Brazilian futsal players including Rodrigo De Melo, Junior Da Silva and Isiais Lima.

They were hot favourites to top the seven-team Leinster Division but the young Wanderers side have thrown a real spanner in the works with this tremendous win.

Da Silva and Lima had give Sporting a two goal lead by O’Gara and a double from Gary O’Neill clinched the turnaround victory.

There was also a surprise result in the opening fixture as Dundalk, led by the impressive Barry Woods and Sean Hand – who scored twice – beat Shamrock Rovers 3-2.

Bray and Dundalk then followed up their early victories with a thrilling 4-4 draw.

Wexford Youths are top of the table after two wins. The first was a dramatic 4-3 victory over St Patrick’s Athletic, a side containing many of the Brasilforall side that won the recent Emerald Futsal League.

St Pat’s then secured a draw with Sporting Fingal with a last minute equaliser from Philipe Machado after Irish national team captain Mark Langtry opened the scoring for Sporting.

Shelbourne were unfortunately at the wrong end of two heavy scorelines but have some extremely talented youngster and are only lacking for experience.

In the North West division, Finn Harps are currently on top with two wins at the Aura Centre in Letterkenny.

Brian Lafferty and Mark Moran were the two key men for Harps as they beat Derry City 4-3 in a cracking game then ran out comfortable winners over Sligo Rovers.

Derry City beat Monaghan United 4-0 in their opening game and Sligo also beat Monaghan to leave the section quite evenly balanced.

In Munster, newcomers Salthill Devon have just edged in front of a very tight group after a 4-3 victory over Limerick FC and an impressive 2-2 draw with Cork City.

Enda Dunne has been the star man for the Galway side with five of their six goals. Limerick and Cork also played out a 3-3 draw in the other fixture.










Posted by Luca Ranocchiari --> luca.ranocchiari@futsalplanet.com