#EnergiaAIL Men’s Division 1B: Round 7 Review

Energia All-Ireland League Men’s Divisions: Round 7 Results Round-Up

Instonians outplayed their local rivals Queen’s University, winning the ‘Bel Classico’ by a clear margin – 40-7. Bradley McNamara returned from Ulster ‘A’ duty to score one of their six tries at Dub Lane.

Instonians left some opportunities behind them during the first half, but still led 19-0 thanks to scores from Neil Saulters, Ruairi O’Farrell, and McNamara. Queen’s lost lock Korede Sanusi to a 23rd-minute sin-binning.

Mark Mairs’ impressive 50:22 kick led to the first scoring chance, but Bevan Prinsloo was held up in the right corner. Inst soon got their maul on the move in the 16th minute, seeing hooker Saulters put the first five points on the board.

Sanusi’s tucked arm when attempting to clear out a ruck earned him his yellow card. The students dug deep while he was off the pitch, with Billy and Reuben Allen managing to hold up Hugo Ellerby as Inst began to threaten with more regularity.

However, scrum half O’Farrell spun out of a tackle to score in the 29th minute, and full-back McNamara stepped inside Adam Lowey’s challenge to cross to the side of a five-metre scrum. Josh Eagleson converted both tries.

Queen’s made good strides during a scrappy third quarter, with captain Henry Walker and number 8 Allen standing out. The former broke off a maul in an advanced position, but Instonians stayed connected in defence and held onto their 19-point advantage.

Fraser Cunningham’s pacy break and kick chase had DJ Creighton’s youngsters briefly threatening again, until Inst, with their bench making an impact, regained control with a late flurry of tries.

Centre Mark Keane weaved through for the first of them in the 68th minute, after replacement Matthew Neill had made the initial incision. O’Farrell, now stationed at out-half, converted the bonus point score.

Inst player-coach Paul Pritchard then put Mark Lee over at the end of a slick attack from inside their own half. Just two minutes later, Prinsloo got his hands to a ball that broke loose from a clever O’Farrell kick for their final seven-pointer.

Queen’s, who are bound for Energia Park this weekend to play pacesetters Old Wesley, gained some late consolation. Replacement Jack Parkinson crashed over from a Lowey pass, following on from a couple of maul efforts.

Meanwhile, Old Wesley held onto top spot with a hard-fought 21-17 victory at Highfield. Tom Larke sliced through for a first-half try and kicked three conversions, keeping him top of the division’s scoring charts with 81 points.

The opening 40 minutes contained penalty misses from both Larke and Highfield’s Shane O’Riordan, but in between, in the 37th minute, Leinster’s Billy Corrigan gobbled up a loose ball after some good harrying from fellow lock Shane Cawley.

Larke came up into the line at pace, evading Chris Banon’s tackle inside the hosts’ 10-metre line. The in-form Old Wesley full-back took off towards the whitewash, nipping inside Nicky Greene’s attempted challenge for a superb converted score.

Highfield had had the lion’s share of possession and territory up to that point, and a poor O’Riordan miss from the tee – by his high standards – left them 7-0 down heading into the break.

Aided by the introduction of player-coach James Cronin, the Cork side’s forwards did some damage through their maul before some lovely interplay between the backs ended with O’Riordan putting Greene over in the right corner.

Nonetheless, Wesley made it 14-7 by the hour mark, Larke getting the visitors back into Highfield’s 22 before the pack chipped away close to the posts. Niall Carroll’s skip pass then set up Paidi Farrell to touch down out on the left.

Cancelling out an O’Riordan penalty, Morgan Lennon’s men had an 11-point cushion within their grasp when Cawley struck from close range in the 74th minute. Jamie Clark’s bulldozing carry had put Wesley in prime position.

Highfield made it a nervy finish, though, as the Wesley lineout misfired close to their own line, the ball going out the back for Travis Coomey to score in the dying seconds. O’Riordan converted, but Liam O’Neill retrieved the restart to make sure Wesley prevailed.

Elsewhere, UCC followed up their Colours win over Queen’s with a well-judged 19-14 defeat of Blackrock College. They survived a frantic finish at Stradbrook, as Charlie O’Shea’s brace of second-half penalties proved decisive.

Alex Kendellen, the first current Men’s international player to line out for UCC in 45 years, was sin-binned just past the hour mark. His Munster colleague, Sean Edogbo, also saw yellow late on, but the students hung on to climb off the bottom of the table.

Blackrock, sitting seventh in the standing, had been left with a 13-point half-time deficit to overcome. Gene O’Leary Kareem and Ben O’Connor both broke through for tries, either side of an O’Shea three-pointer.

The deadlock was broken in the 22nd minute, O’Connor launching a brilliant three-man counter attack in response to an Oliver Coffey kick. Munster Academy starlet O’Leary Kareem provided the finishing touches, running home from 25 metres out.

Blackrock had prop Jack Mullany in the sin bin towards the end of the first half when O’Connor finished off another free-flowing move for his own try, with lock Jason Aherne at the heart of it.

O’Shea’s right boot extended the lead to 16 points, early in the second half. However, Blackrock were beginning to make some inroads, and when Barry Galvin was caught high by Kendellen, the Munster back rower was dispatched to the sin bin.

Inigo Cruise O’Brien opened ‘Rock’s account soon after, expertly picking from a ruck, some 35 metres out, and showing his speed and evasiveness to step inside the covering Paddy Gaffney and cut the gap to nine points.

O’Shea then punished a high tackle from Odhran Ring with an important 72nd-minute place-kick. Blackrock were far from finished, as Edogbo, defending deep inside College’s 22, was caught slapping the ball down and promptly sent to the bin.

The ‘Rock forwards hammered away before Coffey’s long pass put Galvin over in the left corner. Tim Corkery tagged on an impressive conversion, but some heroic goal-line defence saw UCC take the spoils, holding up Shane Connolly right at the death.

Kendellen was sent back on for the tense finale, taking his match minutes to 64 on his return from ankle surgery. UCC are back at the Mardyke next Saturday to host City of Armagh, who are back to winning ways after beating Naas in a 12-try thriller.

City of Armagh crowned a special day for club stalwart Andrew Willis, as they won 47-33 against the Cobras on the occasion of Willis’ 208th and final Energia All-Ireland League appearance.

Willis came on for the final quarter at Palace Grounds, by which stage Armagh were leading 33-21. Naas had started and finished the first half’s scoring, but Chris Parker’s side were 26-14 to the good by the interval.

The visitors got off to a flying start, their full-back Jack Sheridan breaking past two defenders out wide and sweeping infield for an swift exchange with his brother Charlie before surging in under the posts.

Armagh’s response was telling, with their bonus point secured by the half-hour mark. Ulster’s James McCormick broke off a maul to score in the right corner, before player-of-the-match Curtis Pollock got away from three defenders to send Noah Bell over.

With their first dozen points on the board, the Ulstermen kicked on with Rocky Olsen’s deft defence-splitting break creating the opening for Nick Murray’s try. Captain Shea O’Brien then bagged the bonus point from a second Olsen assist.

Charlie Sheridan’s intercept effort, from near halfway, gave Naas a timely lift, and they moved closer inside nine minutes of the restart. Tadhg Brophy’s quick tap and pass saw Paddy Taylor dart clear for his sixth try of the campaign.

Armagh’s lead was down to 26-21, but barely four minutes later, McCormick was celebrating his second maul score. Leinster Academy scrum half Brophy’s well-taken breakaway effort, following a Tom Monaghan intercept, kept the game finely balanced.

Johne Murphy’s charges were soon hit by a double setback, though, as they conceded a penalty try for collapsing an Armagh maul – preventing McCormick for completing his hat-trick – and lost prop Adam Deay to the sin bin as well.

14-man Naas rallied, stretching the home defence for replacement Monaghan to send James O’Loughlin over out wide in the 73rd minute. The gap was back down to seven points – 40-33 – as both sides scrapped furiously for a final try.

It was Armagh who finished on top, their forwards reasserting themselves, and a bout of pressure ended with second row Josh McKinley reaching over the line. Teenager Owen O’Kane added his fifth successful conversion for a 14-point winning margin.

Meanwhile, Garryowen lost out 27-21 to Dublin University on their own patch. Influential winger Davy Colbert’s second try of the match, three minutes from the end, saw Trinity earn a stirring comeback win.

Tony Smeeth’s side avoided back-to-back defeats as they erased a 13-point first-half deficit, bagging four tries in the process. The Light Blues claimed a losing bonus point thanks to Lachlan Stewart’s penalty with the final kick of the game.

It was all looking rosy for Garryowen in the early stages. Stewart converted Alex Wood’s 12th-minute try – a strong tackle-breaking run after a big initial break involving Luca Cleary and Billy Hayes – as well as landing two penalties.

Matty Lynch made up for a penalty miss by converting Colbert’s opening try from out wide. The seven-pointer was set up by some nifty work from Oscar Cawley, Noah Byrne, and Lynch to make the best use of quick ruck ball inside Garryowen’s 22.

The odds were still stacked in Garryowen’s favour, who led 18-7 at the turnaround courtesy of Finn McCall’s late try, the second row fighting hard to ground the ball from Cleary’s skip pass. Stewart pushed his conversion away to the right.

Smeeth made three changes at the break, and one of those replacements, Jack O’Neill, got on the scoresheet. The visitors built momentum with full-back Byrne touching down in the 48th minute, via a neat necklace of passes between Matty Lynch, Kevin Jackson, and Mark Lynch.

Hooker O’Neill was next over the whitewash seven minutes later, shearing off down the short side of a maul. Out-half Lynch’s well-struck conversion edged Trinity ahead for the first time (19-18), although Garryowen’s response was a good one.

Even so, a knock-on meant the hosts were unable to launch from a lineout in an advanced position, and they crucially lost replacement Sean Sexton to a 70th-minute yellow card for two high tackles in quick succession.

Lynch took the points on offer, and the students clinically settled the issue in the final few minutes. Colbert pounced on a Stewart pass that had gone loose, dribbling the ball through before grounding it with his right hand, ahead of Fionn Rowsome.

There was still a minute left to play, and Garryowen salvaged a point courtesy of Stewart’s closing penalty. However, their third defeat in four outings means Mike Sherry’s men have dropped out of the top four. Trinity remain third, four points off the summit.

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