Club Notes: Week Ending 10.02.13

This week’s Club Notes come from Cork Constitution FC and Young Munster RFC.

CORK CONSTITUTION FC

Courtesy of: – Pat Twomey

Constitution’s Gerry Hurley to Captain Irish Club XV

Club coaches Conor Twomey, UCC head coach last season, and David Murphy from De La Salle Palmerston have named a 26-man squad for the Ireland Club XV v England Counties game at Cork Constitution FC on Friday, February 8. KO 7:30 PM

Conor Twomey, and David Murphy have been working hard with the Irish squad since before Christmas and narrowed down the panel from an initial 35 players to 26 this week.
England Counties XV is a representative team that is open to English players who play in the County Championship and below of the English rugby union system. Players from the Premiership and RFU Championship are ineligible. Last year the Irish team were beaten 34-16 by England Counties in Preston North End and Twomey feels he has assembled a strong squad for the game at Temple Hill.
Cork Constitution's Gerry Hurley will captain the squad which includes several experienced players at this level, such as former captains Frank Cogan, Simon Crawford and Sam Cronin. Dolphin's prolific points scorer, Barry Keeshan, is also named and is likely to partner Hurley at half-back. Also returning to the squad from last year are Cian Aherne and Craig Ronaldson from Lansdowne, Risteard Byrne from UCD, Rob Sweeney from St. Mary's College, Neville Melbourne from Young Munster, James Thompson from Ballynahinch and Fergal Walsh from Shannon. In all, there are 12 Ulster Bank League clubs represented from the top two divisions with 11 uncapped players included.

Clubhouse Official Opening

Before the Club International the new Clubhouse will be jointly blessed at 6:25 PM by Bishop John Buckley, Bishop of Cork and Ross and Dr Paul Colton Bishop of Cork , Cloyne and Ross.
I.R.F.U. President Billy Glynn and Cork Constitution President Finian O’Driscoll will cut the ribbon to open the new clubhouse at half time in the Club International.

Parents & Friends
Fun Food Night

Friday 25th January brought entertainment and fun galore to Cork Constitution. Family, friends and relatives gathered to help raise funds for the Under 13s forthcoming trip to France and without doubt it was a fantastic, fun-filled, successful night. A lot of hard work went into organising the night and it paid off. Delicious food was laid on by the mothers, a cocktail bar was set up serving the ever popular Mojito & Strawberry Daiquiri with fruit for these supplied thanks to Dave Owens. Wine was flowing compliments of O’Donovan’s wines and The Wine Buff. Des Cahill manned his own food stall and there was a wonderful variety of cheeses provided by Tadgh O’Donovan with bread in plentiful supply thanks to Cuthberts Midleton.

A silent auction delivered some interesting and sought after items, including hotel trips, cases of wine, a signed Munster jersey and for the truly dedicated, two separate items, one comprising of a private coaching session for twelve lucky boys with Irish Internationals Simon Zebo and Peter O’Mahony, the other a private kicking session for six lucky boys with Irish International Ronan O’Gara.

Some of the boys themselves charmingly worked the room playing the guests with raffle tickets for numerous prizes including restaurant vouchers and cases of wine and raised a significant sum in raffle ticket sales alone.

Altogether, the night was a great success and the organisers wish to thank everyone who attended, contributed, cooked, drank, ate, purchased and donated towards making this such a successful night.

Cork Con FC 1st XV V Garryowen

Score: 21 – 18
Venue: Dooradoyle
Date: 02/02/2013
Referee: P.Fitzgibbon

Cork Constitution won their return Ulster Bank League tie with Garryowen on Saturday. In the first game at Temple Hill in January the Light Blues won the day 14-10, but on this occasion, the accurate place kicking of Johnny Holland proved the difference. The out-half kicked fifteen points in the first half and added six more in the second.

Garryowen scored a try through Conal Doyle converted by Mathew Jarvis, who also kicked a penalty to leave the half time score at 15-10 to Constitution. A try by Ronan O’Mahony brought the sides level at 15 points each mid-way in the second half, but the tie was decided by the accurate boot of Holland.

Garryowen remain in second place on 31points, but have lost ground to Lansdowne, who defeated Dolphin, and lead on 38 points. Constitution on 29 points, remain level with Young Munster, who defeated Old Belvedere, but have a game in hand.

Constitution’s next Ulster Bank AIL game is against St Mary’s College at Temple Hill on 16th February.

Con Team:

D.Lyons; C.Healy, I.Dineen, R.Clune, C.Desmond; J.Holland, G.Hurley Capt.; B.Cagney, B.Vaughan, John Ryan; I.Nagle, P.Donnellan; G.Lawler, B.Hayes, James Ryan.

Con Subs:

A.Cudmore, P.Galvin, C.O’Flaherty, A.Ryan,
Con Scorers: J.Holland 7P.

Garryowen Team:
R.O’Mahony; L.Burke, A.O’Byrne, C.Doyle Capt., E.Connolly; G.Ryan, N.Cronin; R.Brosnan, J.Rael, J.P.Cooney; A.Kennedy, A.McCluskey; C.Hartigan, A,Kavanagh, T.J.Anderson.
Garryowen Subs:
D.Rowley, B.Cullinane, M.Hanrahan, A.Griffen, J.Gavin.

Garryowen Scorers:
C.Doyle 1T; R.O’Mahony 1T; M.Jarvis 2P1C.

YOUNG MUNSTER RFC

Courtesy of Olivia O’Sullivan, PRO

Young Munster take the points in Anglesea Road

Killian McCarthy reports on the AIL game v Old Belvedere:

Sometimes rugby can be brutally ugly.

Trust me. I know ugly. I’ve woken up next to ugly. (Mercifully not for quite some time, but the point stands.)

So you’ll forgive me if I spare you many of the gruesome details from last Saturday’s trip to Anglesea Road. Suffice to say, it was ugly.

The omens beforehand were mixed. On the one hand the same opposition had rolled into Greenfields four weeks ago and rolled out on the wrong side of a 37-point hiding. Into the bargain this time round, Belvo’ were missing their rampaging playmaking No.8 Leo Auva’a and their first choice out-half Steve Crosbie who was away on Ireland Under-20 duty.

On the other hand, they’d run Bohs close a week ago while those of us starved of rugby down Limerick way were denied a trip to Cork by weather last seen in the more vengeful verses of the Old Testament.

Oh, and it clashed with the Ireland match, which seemed like a bad omen in itself.

Anyway, the game kicked off in a haze of cheering and fanfare. Sadly, that was coming from the bar as Brian O’Driscoll was burrowing over for Ireland’s third try. Outside, the die-hards were making themselves heard on a somewhat smaller scale. One or two had an earpiece trained towards Cardiff but eyes and throats were on the heavy-looking South Dublin sod.

Six minutes in and the hosts were ahead, Josh Glynn splitting the uprights from dead straight in front.

There followed 34 minutes of honest endeavour, undermined by handling errors, sub-par kicking, and one horribly mistimed refereeing decision. There were howls of derision as Dom Lespierre spun out of one tackle, dodged another and had only the full-back to beat when he was hauled back for a knock-on.

An Old Belvedere knock-on. Because a scrum on halfway is more advantageous than having a winger in the clear, apparently.

Half-time came, and went, and the expected lift in performance didn’t seem to materialise, despite Brian Haugh cancelling out Glynn’s earlier effort from an almost identical position.

Just before the hour, with play having followed the same patterns in the second half as it had in the first, Belvo turned the formbook on its head and bagged the opening try. Right winger Eddie Devitt got on the end of an Aaron Sheehan cross-kick and dotted down to push his side 8-3 ahead. Glynn was off target with the conversion attempt; a miss that would come back to haunt the speedster-turned place kicker later in the game.

With the clock ticking down it looked like a corner had finally been turned when Darragh O’Neill chipped the last defender and dove on the ball at the back of the in-goal area. From a considerable distance away however, referee Paul Haycock decreed the ball had beaten the winger to the dead ball line before being grounded and awarded the hosts a 22 drop-out.

As you can imagine, it wasn’t a popular decision among the travelling support and with time almost up it looked as though it might have proved costly. As the clock ticked past 80’ the score still stood at 8-3 and to compound matters, Brian Haugh had been sin-binned.

Against the odds though, after 80 minutes of ugly rugby, the 14 men still on the field delivered.

A 5 metre scrum was awarded, Mike Prendergast fed it, and the front rows went down.

Twice.

When Munsters got the shove on the third time of asking the jaded Belvo’ pack buckled and left referee Haycock with no choice but to run under the posts to award the penalty try.

Shane O’Leary marked his first senior appearance by notching the extras under considerable pressure, and surely that was that, right?

Right?

Sadly – from the point of view of my cardiac health – there was a sting in the tail. Old Belvedere claimed the restart, drove into Munsters’ 22’ and looked poised to snatch the game with a last-gasp drop-goal.

A half dozen heart-stopping phases later No.10 Sheehan was back in the pocket with three chasers bearing down on him. Whether the kick was on target or not we’ll never know because it was charged down before anyone could tell. Shane O’Leary hacked downfield to clear the lines and after Belvo’ captain Danny Riordan had been tackled into touch that, finally, was that.

Four points secured, and with Garryowen slipping up at home to Cork Con second place is definitely in sight at the very least. Had a Barry Keeshan conversion been on target in Musgrave Park then the gap to first would have narrowed too, but that wasn’t to be.

Still, on a day that could easily have been written off as a bad day at the office, Munsters managed to win ugly, and didn’t somebody once say that’s the hallmark of a champion?

Final score: Old Belvedere 8 Young Munster 10

Old Belvedere: Pa O’Regan, Cillian McDonald, Declan Lavery, Josh Eden-Whairtiri, Dean Moore, Colin Mallon, Kieran O’Gorman, Jonathan Slattery, David Moore, Aaron Sheehan, Josh Glynn, Alex Kelleher, John Kennedy, Eddie Devitt, Danny Riordan (Capt)

Subs: Adam Howard, Mark Cooney, Jack Conan, Ben Woods, Gearoid Mc Donald.

Young Munster: Darragh Cantillon, Ger Slattery, Alan Cotter, Sean Duggan, Johnny Moroney, Mark Rowley, Luke Russell, Neville Melbourne, Brian Haugh, Mike Prendergast, Darragh O'Neill, Lukas Kuntz, Mark Doyle, Dom Lespierre, Craig O'Hanlon.

Subs: Daniel Montgomery, Hugh McGrath, Mike Madden, Colin Liston, Shane O'Leary.

Referee: Paul Haycock (IRFU)

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Bonus point win for Second XV

On Sunday, our Second XV took on Old Crescent in the Munster Seconds League, notching up a fine bonus point win.

Final score: Young Munster 41 Old Crescent 10

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Special 20-Year Anniversary Event

The spirit of ’93 lives on… On Friday February 15th a special dinner will take place in the Greenhills Hotel celebrating the AIL winning team of 1993. Tickets are €;35 available from Fergal Deegan 086-2265692 or Michael O’Donoghue 087-7626163. Book immediately as places are limited.

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Clubhouse open Sundays and available for functions

The clubhouse at Tom Clifford Park is open every Sunday with all pints just €;3.50. To enquire about having functions in the clubhouse contact Frank Corr 087-2901015.

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Noel Enright R.I.P.

The recent death of Noel Enright was sadly felt by all in Young Munster RFC. Noel was born and reared in the Rosbrien area in the heartland of Young Munster. He could be seen at all games home or away. In his younger days he was a notable athlete and won many a race with Limerick Athletic Club.Young Munster RFC would like to offer our deepest condolences to the Enright family, he will be sadly missed by all at Tom Clifford Park. R.I.P.

– Johnny Brennan

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Fixtures

Saturday 9th February

• AIL U21 South West Conference: Young Munster v Garryowen 2.30pm Tom Clifford Park