Image From A Previous Game
1st XV have fantastic All Ireland League win – 20-13 at home to Seapoint
At the start of the day the 1st XV position in div 2A of the All Ireland League was:
Played 8 won 2
Lying 3rd from bottom, above automatic relegation but lying in the place that means having to play the 3rd place team in division 2B for survival in 2A.
Two hours later, a great win, played 9 won 3.
Being the only team of the bottom 4 to win and therefore moving to 4th from bottom and out of the relegation zone.
Hopefully more days like this to follow. 6 games left, 3 home, 3 away and the fight for survival really on.
This was our 2nd match against Seapoint, the fixture down there last year was equally close with again us coming out narrow victors.
Yesterday we took our chances well but the match was won by our guts in defence.
Seapoint must have had 75% of the ball and terriortory, our scrambling defence made them make mistakes or wrong decisisions and hence the win. The rickety in the changing room was loud and emotional.
Right from the start when we attacked Seapoint defended well and when it was their turn to attack we did likewise.
Seapoint opened the scoring after 8 minutes, from a lineout in our 22 Seapoint mauled the ball well, infact their maul was their strongest weapon all day. Eventually Seapoint swept the ball left and we were outnumbered, simple inside pass put their no15 Ken Casey in at the corner. Conversion missed (0-5).
Now it was our turn to attack, the ball moved well, but on 2 or 3 occassions the attack was halted due to a knock on or being held up.
On 25 minutes a Sepoint clearence kick was fielded by “old man” Gareth McClintock, at first he seemed to run up his own Ars!! but then he appeared on an outside arc down the blindside defence. A clever kick ahead. The Seapoint hooker must have thought Gareth was twice his real size, the ball was fumbled, one handed pick up from Seamus Mallon and pop to Richard Fegan who dived over at the posts. Simple conversion for new boy Matthew McGuigan (7-5)
The 2 packs really started to have a go at eachother, scrums were a tough area for us and from a lineout on 30minutes a brawl erupted. Kenny Morton being the innocent receiver of a few punches, a couple even from one of the Seapoint supoort team who ran on the “break it up!!”. The Seapoint follower apologised later, he had meant to hit him harder (only joking). Seapoint lost their No4 for the Punches.
Within 5 minutes they lost a prop for aggressive raking with the boot at a ruck. This time we were able to punish them when Matt Mcguigan slotted the penalty. (10-5)
But Seapoint showed what they were made off, whilst down to 13 men they defended like demons and we never really looked like scoring again.
Just before half time, Seapoint were back to full strength, then it was our turn to play with less people. Alan Whitten was penalised at a ruck and yellow carded. Seapoint showed us what to do when they kicked to the corner, lineout, effective maul and try by their No4 Mark Barrett (10-10)
Not much for the rest of the half (10-10)
In the 2nd half both teams attempted to run the ball defences continuing to cancell out the others attack. 10 minute into the 2nd half, at the end of one such passage of Instonian pressure our young No10 Matt McGuigan coolly sloted a drop goal (13-10).
Seapoint came back at us, clever kicks over the back line, moving the ball wide but our scrambling defence was really warmed up and turned the ball at many of the breakdowns.
From one such penalty we kicked to touch. Good lineout a fumble by our No10 was kicked through, David McGovern picked up the bouncing ball and ran in from 30 yards to score a try by the posts, converted by Matt McGuigan (20-10).
Twenty minutes to go and we never got out of our own half, maybe even 22. Seapoint threw everything at us but we scrambled like mad. Their maul was held up or stopped an numerous occassions.
All Sepoint had to show was a Penalty from their No 10 Brian Keegan.
The last play for the game probably summed up the day, again Seapoint were in our 22 attacking. Gareth Mcclintock made a covering tackle, was being penalised for holding on when the seapoint No 10 decided to throw a punch and the penalty was reversed and we kicked to touch to end the match.
Seapoint had already won 5 games so we needed this win more than they did, but we deserved it for out guts over the entire 80 minutes.
Next week we travel to Limerick to take on Old Crescent who are now on the same points as us. (12th at home to 13th)
This win came with a high cost. Sean O’Connell has a fractured Ankle and torn ligaments and will probably miss the rest of the season, Ryan Jablonski also has a foot injury, Andy Mckeen and David McGovern are carrying knocks. Speedy recovery to them all.
Team 1-20: Paddy Dornan, David Mcgovern, Alan Whitten, Matt Irwin, Kenny Morton, Andy McKeen, Mark Jones, Sean O’Connell, Michael Sargent, Matthew McGuigan, Richard Fegan, Seamus Mallon, Jamie Scott, Robbie Kirk, Gareth McClintock, Nico Andress, Marcus Hart, Ryan Jablonski, Stephen Ferguson, Daryl Marshall
