News article – Style E 2299

AIB League Division Two leaders, Old Crescent travel to Cork for their game with Sunday’s Well while second placed Dolphin engage UCC at The Mardyke.

In contrast to their Musgrave Park co-tenants, Dolphin, the Well are struggling and currently occupy 13th spot in the table. This will be the fourth consecutive time they’ve faced a Munster club and it will arguably be their toughest test.
After a run of four defeats they halted the rot last weekend with a hard-earned 9-8 win over Midleton at Towns Park and they’ll need more of the same on Saturday when they face an Old Crescent side who ran in seven tries in their 44-12 win over Portadown last Saturday.

If the victory of Sunday’s Well raised eyebrows last time then so too did the result from Musgrave Park where Dolphin lost their unbeaten record, beaten 14-12 by Thomond. They’ll make the short journey to The Mardyke to take on a UCC side who were narrow losers (16-13) against Young Munster last week in Tom Clifford Park.

Third placed Bective Rangers head north to Ballynahinch where they have been successful on their last two visits. They’ve won five of their last six games in Ulster while the division’s top scorer, Fergal Campion will give them that extra edge.

Young Munster, fourth in the table, cross the Shannon for a derby game against a Thomond side whose Aiden O’Halloran scored 487 points during a seven season spell with Young Munster.

Fifth plays 14th when Midleton travel to Portadown and Greystones, one place below the northern club, make the trip up the M50 to take on Barnhall. Barnhall just missed out on promotion last season but have made one of their worst starts to a season having already lost as many games as they did throughout their Division Two campaign last year. However, there were signs last week that things are on the up when tries from the Burke brothers, Conrad and Brendan, helped them to a 15-6 win over Dublin University. Ominously for Greystones, no Leinster club has ever won an AIB League game in Parsonstown.

DLSP will see the visit of bottom placed Dublin University as the ideal opportunity to haul themselves further up the table and in a middle division table clash, Malone with home advantage, would be expected to take the points from the visit of Old Belvedere.

In Division Three, Waterpark are unbeaten after five games and lead Corinthians by two points. Waterpark travel to Donnybrook for a joust with Old Wesley while Corinthians go west in the direction of New York, stopping off in Clifden for what will be a tough encounter with the Connemara All Blacks.

At the bottom end of the table, Skerries, having just avoided relegation last year, Naas and Monkstown are all starting to lose touch with the bunch and their matches this weekend – Skerries v Monkstown and fourth from bottom Suttonians v Naas will go a long way to deciding who might end up in the Junior ranks next year.