21.02.2009 J2 XV v Lansdowne (A)
| 21/02/2009 | 3:00pm | League | Lansdowne | 0 – 27 | St. Marys J2 XV | Away |
St. Marys College J2 V Lansdowne J2
27 00
In what was probably our most important win of the season, the J2’s produced a good display to beat Lansdowne 27-0. What was even more pleasing was that we kept them scoreless and made full use of our bench in the end. It is a performance that will give us confidence going into the final two games but we are not going to get carried away with it as we know ourselves there is nothing won yet.
For the first time in many a game our pack were able to provide quick ruck ball to our backs largely due to the excellent carrying of Kevin Gallivan and Paul Collins. This opened up a lot of space out wide which the likes of Cahill, Harrison and Conboy thrive on. We opened the scoring from a catch and drive with Brian Moran popping out at the back to get the touchdown, Alan Shirley missed the conversion which was to set the tone for him for the whole game! Our next score came from some very good phase play again after a big Collins drive barry cahill squeezed in under the posts to make the conversion easy for Shirley, alas it sailed wide again, luckily Shirley was making up for it in his general play where he looked back to his best. Rob Gannon who has just returned from a long lay off through injury, got our next score showing good strength and finishing. At this stage you could see Lansdowne wilting and when we kicked off into them to begin the second half our pack totally milled the catcher led by Mikey Houlihan, this lifted us again and we scored early through Kevin Gallivan. We dropped off in intensity from then, which is something that we need to look at but did manage one more score through the elder statesman Eoin McCormack. All in all it was a satisfactory win, but we need to put it behind us now and focus on the next two games as it will come down to the last game of the season by the looks of things.
15. Alan Conboy, 14. Barry Cahill, 13. Rob Gannon, 12 Alan Shirley, 11 Alan Harrison, 10 Joey Connolly, 9 Eoin McCormack, 8 Kevin Gallivan, 7 Karl O’Brien, 6 Rob Ryan, 5 Eoin Keane, 4 Graham Foran, 3 Paul Collins, 2 Brian Moran, 1 Mikey Houlihan