29.01.2011 J4 XV v Athy (A)
| 29/01/2011 | 2:30pm | League | Athy RFC | 18 – 30 | St. Marys J4 XV | Away |
Mary’s made the trip to Athy for only our 2nd game of the super six competition because of games being postponed due to bad weather over the last few months.
Mary’s started the brighter of the two sides getting good forward momentum from fast and direct phases, Athy were on the backfoot and after some great work from the backs in the Athy 22 the ball was turned over after a quick recycle. This left the Athy defence stretched and outhalf Ted drew two men and passed to Henderson who went in for a try under the posts. Ted converted to give Mary’s a 7 point lead.
The pressure from Mary’s continued and after a number of infringements and talk back to the ref an Athy player was yellow carded. Shortly after, a knock on stopped short an easy walk in for the backs.
It was around the 30 minute mark where Mary’s lost the grip on the game,with an extra man and confident after a fine start Mary’s got a bit over confident trying to score from first phase, this resulted in a number of handling errors and turnovers handing control over to Athy who got down into the Mary’s 22 a few times and after infringements penalties followed giving a 14 man Athy an easy 6 points, half time score 6-7 to Mary’s.
Mary’s looked to get back into the form of the first 20 minutes but found this hard as Athy had a renewed confidence after their good spell at the end of the first half.
Control of the game continued to swing with a number of handling errors from both sides, there were glimpses of what Mary’s could do, after some good possession the Athy winger showed Cunningham to much space and Cunningham used his pace to finish a fine 40 metre try in the corner. The kick missed but Mary’s still in the lead 6-12.
It was Athy who had the majority of possession for the next while and whilst good try line defence held them out they eventually went over for the try.
Mary’s hit straight back with some good play that eventually saw Whyte break through and power over with men hanging off him to score a good try in the corner, the kick missed Mary’s were 11-17 up.
Another swing in control saw Mary’s give away a number of penalites letting Athy kick deep into the Mary’s 22, the next 7 to 8 minutes saw Mary’s defending on the try line repeated infringement saw McCarthy binned and unfortunately all the hard work was for nothing as Athy eventually squeezed in for a try and converted to go a point up 18-17 with two minutes left.
Mary’s heads dropped behind the posts but only for a second before the lads picked themselves up, believing as a team they could still win.
From the kick off Athy regained the ball but the clearance kick failed to make touch giving Mary’s possession the next 5 minutes saw a huge team effort with phase after phase taking Mary’s further into the 22, Athy’s defence remained strong but eventually a penalty came and a yellow card was given.
The penalty was the last kick fo the game and 15 metre’s out to the right of the posts, Teddy stepped and slotted the penalty to win the game 18-20 and keep us in 2nd place of the super six with a game in hand.
The game was a mixed bag with some good phase play but also some poor decision making and handling letting Athy into the game, the last two minutes showed the determination and drive needed to win the league. Next week is Terenure away.
1.Stacks 2.Eamon Moran 3.Alan Godfrey 4.Joe Doddy 5.Niall Conway 6.Tim Henderson 7.Phil Conway 8.Padraig Nestor 9.Ross Wynne 10.Brian Moran 11.Chi Yuen Hui 12.Paul Moran 13.David Carpenter 14.Nick Cunningham 15.Paul Whyte
16.Andrew McCarthy 17.Richard Pyne