Clogher Valley 43 Connemara All Blacks 10<\/p>\n
Clogher Valley marched into the semi final of the All Ireland Junior Rugby
\nCup with a comprehensive 43-10 victory over the Connemara All Blacks at the
\nCran<\/p>\n
On another pleasant afternoon, with the biggest home crowd of the season,
\nValley started well with good field position and much encouragement from the
\nearly exchanges. It was however to be Connemara who opened their account,
\nin their first incursion into the Valley half on 6 minutes, when the home
\nteam were penalised at the breakdown. Connemara No 10, Sweeney, put his
\nteam in front by kicking a penalty from just outside the Valley 22.<\/p>\n
Valley were to increase the intensity upfront after this. Aided by
\nincreasing forward dominance and a strong support game, much of the rest of
\nthe match was played in the Connemara half. Best kicked well to bring
\nValley well into the Connemara half after a strong scrum on 13 minutes. A
\ntypically robust run from Falconer brought play towards the visitors’ line.
\nThe resulting scrum saw Valley No.8 Wilson pick up and make a strong break
\nand fend off defenders for the home team’s first try on 16 minutes. Valley
\nNo.10, Holme, kicked an excellent conversion to see the home team leading
\n7-3.<\/p>\n
Connemara briefly threatened to close the gap with an ambitious missed
\npenalty around halfway. The resulting play saw Valley full back Armstrong
\nlaunching a hefty punt back into the visitors’ 22. With home winger Stott
\nfollowing up, the Connemara defence made a hash of clearing their line. A
\ntransgression from Connemara saw Holme kick a penalty on 21 minutes to see
\nValley leading 10-3.<\/p>\n
After further transgressions from the visitors, the referee yellow carded
\ntheir lock, Flaherty, on 23 minutes. Valley took the opportunity to go
\nfurther ahead during this time. First, Wilson broke towards the Connemara
\n22, supported by McKenna (who had an excellent game throughout), Moore and
\nCobain. With the visitors’ defence struggling to deal with the succession
\nof mauls it was Sharkey was made the decisive break to score Valley’s second
\ntry on 24 minutes. Holme added the conversion to made it 17-3. With a
\nsense of dread prevailing over the Connemara pack at scrumtime, further
\npressure from the Valley pack at a scrum 5 yards out from the visitors’ line
\nsaw the referee going under the post for a penalty try on 31 minutes. Holme
\nconverted this to leave Valley leading 24-3.<\/p>\n
The remainder of the half saw Connemara, principally through its
\nsharp-looking backline, trying to claw some points back which it was unable
\nto do so and there were no further scores in the first half.<\/p>\n
Connemara did however claw some points back immediately after the break
\nwhen, after some good linking, the ball was kicked through over Valley line
\nand the visitors’ full back, Vaughan, was on hand to score a try (which was
\nonly allowed after the referee checked with his touch judge). Sweeney added
\nthe conversion to leave it 24-10.<\/p>\n
As has often been the case this season, the concession of points had a
\ngalvanising impact on Valley. From the restart, the ball found its way back
\ninto the Connemara half and, after the Valley maul had shattered the
\nvisitors’ defence, it was winger Breen who was on hand to score his team’s
\nfourth try on 45 minutes. The conversion was missed to leave it 29-10 to
\nValley.<\/p>\n
Valley missed a further chance immediately after when, after a great steal
\nby Sharkey at the lineout, good work by Cobain saw the ball spun out to the
\nValley backs and the last pass was dropped. With the Valley tails up, they
\ncontinued to attack at will around the Connemara 22. With a further try in
\nthe offing Connemara transgressed in front of their own posts on 57 minutes.
\nValley chose the scrum and, with the Connemara scrum in disarray, Wilson was
\non hand to dot down Valley’s fifth try. Holme added the conversion to see
\nValley leading 36-10.<\/p>\n
With Connemara trying to run from all over the field in the last quarter,
\nValley continued to turnover ball and disrupt the visitors’ supply of ball.
\nOne such turnover, on 74 minutes, was to lead to Valley’s best try when,
\nafter several phases of play which brought the ball into the Connemara 22.
\nStott then broke to the right of the posts to feed Armstrong who split the
\ndefence to touch down for Valley’s sixth try. Holme added the conversion to
\nleave it at 43-10, which as the clock ran down, proved to be the final
\nscore.<\/p>\n
Overall, a thoroughly convincing and comprehensive win by Valley with a
\nsuperb team performance a credit to their work on the training park. The
\nsemi finals are due to take place on 13 December and, on this performance at
\nleast, Valley can look forward to this date with some confidence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Clogher Valley 43 Connemara All Blacks 10 Clogher Valley marched into the semi final of the All Ireland Junior Rugby Cup with a comprehensive 43-10 victory over the Connemara All Blacks at the Cran On another pleasant afternoon, with the biggest home crowd of the season, Valley started well with good field position and much […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[788],"tags":[14964,6631,17322,4702,4280,5961],"class_list":["post-76719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-clogher-valley","tag-1s","tag-clogher","tag-connemara","tag-report","tag-v","tag-valley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76719\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intouchrugby.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}