J3 XV — Season 2019/20

Templeville Road

Tough battle tonight in the Metro Division 5 game in Templeville Road between our St.Mary’s College RFC J3’s and Wanderers.

St Mary’s were 1st off the blocks with a try by flanker James McHugh which Captain Denis Daly converted. The 1st half remained tight with Wanderers successful with two penalties. Half time score was 7-6 to St Mary’s. Unfortunately St Mary’s lost 2nd row Liam Kennelly who ended up in hospital with a bad ankle injury.

Wanderers started the better in the 2nd half with two early 2nd half tries. St Mary’s had a late rally with a 2nd try for McHugh. Conversion missed but losing bonus point secured. Final score St Mary’s 12-18 Wanderers.

A disappointment for the lads the lads but onwards and upwards to next weekend for another thought away game in Energia Park against Old Wesley.

Get well soon Liam.

Ballycorus Road

Mary’s kicked off into Wesley in Ballycorus, the ball was gathered by Wesley just outside their 22 and that’s where the next 30 mins would be played.

Constant Mary’s pressure with strong caries by the forwards especially Mc Gill, Lloyd and Parker made ground every phase. Rambling runs from Fanning caused Wesley serious problems.

10 minutes into the game, the deadlock was broken after the Mary’s scrum half Mc Manus fed Captain Denis Daly after a messy maul 45 metres out. Daly deployed the family side step on multiple occasions to beat several defenders to score just right of the posts. Mc Manus converted.

Not long after Mc Manus slotted a penalty from 35 metres after multiple Wesley infringements.

10 minutes later after scrum dominance Mary’s picked from the back and after strong carry by Parker, Michael O’Malley powered over to score. 15 nil to Mary’s.

This would be Mary’s last points. The last 5 mins of the half Mary’s had to defend for the first time in the game. A solid Wesley maul ended in a 20 metre break away by Wesley’s hooker Ross O’Sullivan and a converted try.

Half time 7 – 15 Mary’s.

The second half was some proper ding dong junior rugby. Strong carries from both sides but the game was going nowhere as knock ons and turnovers were plenty. Neither side looked like scoring but Wesley looked the more dominant.

In fairness to Ref Tom O’Malley he played a fair game and did his best Nigel Owens impressions at scrum time to keep both side entertained.

Wesley turned the screw in the Mary’s 22 with 25 mins to go. Constant pressure and Mary’s infringements led to a lovely try from the Wesley scrum half Call Lynn making use of lazy Mary’s pillars from 5 metres out. Try was converted and score was 14-15. One point game to Mary’s.

Wesley centre Hugo Grattirola continue to dance around the Mary’s defence but both sides went nowhere.

The last 5mins were all Wesley. Mary’s hadn’t scored since the 32nd minute.

Strong defence from Pynner, O’Reilly and McGill meant that Wesley were kept away from Mary’s try line.

Mary’s then made a mistake with one minute to go leading to a scrum for Wesley inside Mary’s 22. Wesley decided to go wide and a huge hit by Mary’s winger Cian Wogan stood up the Wesley centre with 4 Mary’s players rushing in to hold him up for a maul turnover.

Whistle blew and Mary’s left with a one point win. All 20 men in the squad put it a huge shift to hold out a Wesley Team that looked all but dead in the first 30 minutes.

Return fixture awaits!

Lansdowne Road

Lansdowne and Mary battled it out for the first 10 minutes with Mary’s coming out the better at 3 points up. Unfortunately that would be the last bit of Mary’s dominance for the first half.

After a disallowed Mary’s try heads went wayward and lansdowne got in for a handy try after a lose Mary’s clearance kick followed by poor tackling lead to the lansdowne 10 scoring under the posts converted.

Further poor defence from Mary’s saw the host score another converted try despite the ball flying out of Lansdownes ruck 3 metres forward. Score 17 to 3.

Lansdowne pressure resulted in another break from their centre who did well to score from 40 metres out. A great linebreak from the home side.

Marys manage a good individual try after a nice step from Cal Gray saw him score under the posts.

Half time. 24 – 8

Mary’s started brilliantly in the second half. Stealing the kick off, winning a penalty and mauling over to make it 24-15. A very happy Colm Smith getting up after some great assistance from the pack.

That would be it from the visitors despite being the better team in the second half they couldn’t break down a strong lansdowne team who managed a bonus point try 15 mins from time.

The home side managing to create an opportunity from an overlap.

A mini brawl was the last remaining highlight of the game with a lansdowne forward seeing yellow for punching Mary’s prop McGill.

Final score 31 – 15 and a hard lesson learned by the away team.

Templeville Road

A cool, damp night with wet underfoot conditions made for a dull error ridden game.

Belvo started the strongest and their pressure gave them a 3 nil lead after 10 mins through the boot of their out half after Mary’s were penalised in front on their own sticks.

20 mins later after two butchered Mary try opportunities, Belvo infringed with Mary’s out half Mc Manus slotting a penalty from 35 metres to tie the scores.

3 – 3 half time.

The second half was played mainly in the middle of the park until 15 mins in to the period a couple of dubious Belvo passes lead to a break and a converted score for the visitors.

Marys kept the pressure on after this and spent the last 15 mins in the Belvo 22. Failing to score despite Belvo being down to 13 men for 5 of those minutes.

A frustrating game for the home side finished 3 -10. The visitors remaining top of the table after a strong defensive performance.

Dan

St. Mary's: 1 James Curley, 2 David McGill, 3 Andrew Hayden, 4 Richard Fagan, 5 James O'Reilly, 6 James McHugh, 7 Liam Kennelly, 8 Tom Parker, 9 Dan McManus, 10 Denis Daly, 11 Simon Nagle, 12 Michael O'Malley, 13 Michael Daly, 14 Cian Wogan, 15 James Walsh.

Replacements: 16 Gary Masterson, 17 Matthew Fagan, 18 James Casey, 19 John Martin, 20 John Andreucetti.

From the Leinster Rugby team sheet.

St. Mary's: 1 David McGill, 2 Colm Smith, 3 Andrew Hayden, 4 Richard Fagan, 5 Gareth Lloyd, 6 Denis Healy, 7 Craig Byrne, 8 David Balfour, 9 Alan McPhillips, 10 Dan McManus, 11 John Andreucetti, 12 Michael O'Malley, 13 Richard Pyne, 14 Simon Nagle, 15 James Walsh.

Replacements: 16 Callan Carey, 17 Noel Kelly, 18 Daniel Hegarty, 19 Harry Fanning, 20 Conor McKenna.

From the Leinster Rugby team sheet.

St. Mary's: 1 Kealan Quinn, 2 Colm Smith, 3 David McGill, 4 Richard Fagan, 5 Noel Kelly, 6 James Curley, 7 Craig Byrne, 8 James Casey, 9 Dan McManus, 10 John Andreucetti, 11 Paul Oppermann, 12 Michael O'Malley, 13 Michael Daly, 14 Aidan Boyle, 15 James Walsh.

Replacements: 16 Gary Masterson, 17 Killian Doyle, 18 Daniel Hegarty, 19 James O'Reilly, 20 Harry Fanning.

From the Leinster Rugby team sheet.

St. Mary's: 1 James Curley, 2 Jonathan Allison, 3 Andrew Hayden, 4 Richard Fagan, 5 Gary Masterson, 6 David Balfour, 7 Craig Byrne, 8 Tom Parker, 9 Denis Daly, 10 Dan McManus, 11 Cian Wogan, 12 Michael O'Malley, 13 Richard Pyne, 14 Paul Oppermann, 15 Simon Nagle.

Replacements: 16 Gareth Lloyd, 17 David McGill, 18 Alan McPhillips, 19 John Andreucetti, 20 James Walsh.

From the Leinster Rugby team sheet.

St. Mary's: 1 James Curley, 2 James Coolican, 3 Alan Blake, 4 Richard Fagan, 5 Matthew Kennedy, 6 Gareth Lloyd, 7 Craig Byrne, 8 Tom Parker, 9 Denis Daly, 10 Dan McManus, 11 David Sloan, 12 James O'Reilly, 13 James Walsh, 14 Paul Oppermann, 15 John Andreucetti.

Replacements: 16 Conor Whelan, 17 Jonathan Kelly, 18 James McHugh, 19 Caglar Tuc, 20 Alan McPhillips.

From the Leinster Rugby team sheet.

St. Mary's: 1 James Curley, 2 David McGill, 3 Callan Carey, 4 Padraig Fox, 5 Matthew Kennedy, 6 James McHugh, 7 Craig Byrne, 8 Brian McGovern, 9 Denis Daly, 10 Dan McManus, 11 Aidan Boyle, 12 Michael O'Malley, 13 Richard Pyne, 14 Paul Oppermann, 15 John Andreucetti.

Replacements: 16 Aaron Doherty, 17 Jonathan Allison, 18 David Dixon, 19 Harry Fanning, 20 Alan McPhillips.

From the Leinster Rugby team sheet.

St. Mary's: 1 David McGill, 2 Colm Smith, 3 Andrew Hayden, 4 Shane Fanning, 5 Matthew Kennedy, 6 James McHugh, 7 Craig Byrne, 8 Brian McGovern, 9 Denis Daly, 10 Dan McManus, 11 James Walsh, 12 Michael O'Malley, 13 Richard Pyne, 14 Michael Daly, 15 John Andreucetti.

Replacements: 16 Jonathan Allison, 17 Callan Carey, 18 Alan Blake, 19 Simon Nagle, 20 Alan McPhillips.

From the Leinster Rugby team sheet.

From the club's Junior Rugby preview for 2019-2020.

This summer saw another required restructuring at Junior Rugby from J2 down. This was due to a combination of factors including quite a few retirements.

There were two elements to the restructuring. Part one involved merging our J3’s and J4’s. Players left from last season’s J3’s were spit between the J2’s and J4’s. Also a number of J4’s moved up to J1’s and J2’s.

For our new J3’s (merged old J3’s and J4’s) they will play in Division 5. The aim is to strengthen the squad in order to complete for the playoff. They lost a few key players in the close season due to retirements and also lost tailmans Padraig Nestor who relocated to Cork. The J3’s will be coached by Dan McManus, managed by Steve Conboy and captained by Denis Daly.

This team, J4’s (old J5’s) will play in Division 9. The aim here is to continue player development and move them up through to the higher team. The long term goal is to close the division game with our J3’s in Division 5. This team is coached by Ryan Barnes, with Dave Gardner as forwards coach, Robert Dunleavy as manager and Eric Dunne as captain.