Ashton hit Villiers for six

Villiers School found themselves outplayed in their opening fixture of the 2012 All Ireland Schools Championships, going down 6-1 against a clinical Ashton side. The first 10 minutes was rather cagey, with Villiers starting the game in a high press trying to take the game to Ashton. But it was Ashton who struck first, with good work from Richard Sweetnam in the circle winning the first penalty corner of the game. It was converted with a good drag flick from centre back David Whitaker.

Ashton doubled their advantage only minutes after the restart, great wing play from David Treacy, beating his man on the inside and hammering a cross to the back post where Kevin Byrne hit a controlled first time slap into the bottom corner. Villiers switched on and began to battle back into game through a sequence of quickly taken free hits, their speed of play paid off as Ashton’s Gary Wilkinson didn’t retreat his five yards and was shown a green card. Villers took advantage of their extra man, winning a short corner on their next attack and David Cardy drag flicked it confidently into the top left corner. As the half drew to a close Ashton piled on the pressure, the ball was bouncing around the Villiers circle until Simon Wolfe put his low reverse stick shot into the bottom corner. Villiers defence was facing wave after wave of Ashton attacks and they crumbled again with a hard hit into the circle deflecting off Glenn Morrow’s stick into his own net. Just before half-time Ashton put away another short corner, Whitaker scoring. The second half was dominated by Ashton with Simon Wolfe scoring a good reverse stick goal and his second of the game. David Whitaker was shown a yellow card for an off the ball push on a Villiers defender, but that didn’t matter much as Ashton wrapped up the victory in some style with a diving reverse shot from Gary Wilkinson. Elsewhere, Bandon suffered a setback in a topsy-turvy tie Sutton Park, coming back from 2-0 down to lead 3-2 with Mark Kingston netting twice.

Irish U-16 international Jack Ryan, though, responded with two of his own for a 5-3 win for the north Dublin school to make Bandon’s task an uphill one ahead of a date with reigning champions Banbridge Academy.