Barnhall 3 - 26 Stillorgan<br />
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J3 League - Jan 24th, 2009<br />
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On a bright and breezy Saturday afternoon the Stillorgan J3 bandwagon rolled into Lexlip to face third in the table Barnhall in a must win game. This was the venue of our pennant win last year so for 11 of the starting team it brought back great memories. With Barnhall knowing defeat would put pay to their slim chances of league success we knew it was going to be a tough game. Talk in our dressing room was of Barnhall calling us bottlers for losing in two semi finals last year (it was actually three if they counted the sevens tournament) so for us it added an extra bit of spice to the game.<br />
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It only took us about 5mins to open the scoring with a Timmy penalty when Barnhall were penalised for hands on the ground as we were camped inside their 22. But true to form Barnhall came back at us and we conceded a needless penalty in front of our own posts which their out half converted with ease. More pressure from our forwards produced another three point to give us the lead for the first time in the game, which we were never to give up. Then came the opening try of the game. A well worked lineout move, which I am sure the forwards have practiced numerous times in training, worked perfectly to see the middle Shanahan score in the blindside corner. Timmy converted a difficult conversion with the aid of the crossbar, which left the scores 13-3. Timmy added another two penalty before we scored our second try. This try came as a result of great play between forwards and backs ending up with daddy Shanahan scoring in the corner. Again Timmy convert which left the half-time score 23-3.<br />
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The feeling in the Stillorgan huddle was the game was won and we could now chase the bonus point that we felt we deserved and needed to top the division. But maybe by putting that pressure on ourselves we under performed in the second 40 minutes and as a result all we had to show for our dominance was a Timmy penalty to leave the full time scored 26-3. There seemed to be genuine disappointment at the sound of the full time whistle but this just shows how far we have come as a team and a club that we demand the very best of ourselves every week for the full 80 minutes.<br />
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Man of the Match – Timmy for his 100% goal kicking.<br />
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For the parish<br />
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Match report by Mark Harnett, Drop Goal Expert