CYM 25 - 13 Stillorgan
J4 Friendly - Sept 21th, 2008
The J4 team opened their season on a boiling hot Sunday morning, down by the daily Star\'s offices in Terenure, where we faced CYM.
We had a good side out, with six or seven lads making their first start for the club. Despite the gigantic numbers at training we were a touch short on subs, where we had expected a lot of lads to show up and show us what they were made of? Did we really have 15 or 20 lads going to the All-Ireland? :)
The Bull messed up his leg during the warm-up, so Fidel stepped up to the plate and played scrum half. I don\'t think CYM knew what hit them, when the scrum half would rather be digging for the ball in the rucks and mauls, than giving the ball to the girls outside him! But overall I thought he had a good day, featuring the strangest yellow card of all time [for shouting at one of their players, not bad language, or anything, just shouting!]
It was a messy and scrappy game, where they spent the entire game going off their feet, coming in from the side and killing the ball [and we spent the entire game giving them chances to do that!]. Fair play to the ref [their coach from the sound of it] as he pinged them for it on a number of occasions. As a result, near the end of the first half the score stood 6-6, both teams kicking two penalties.
Their try came in the first half after a number of CYM phases we were spread all over the field. There was a ruck near the half way, which they managed to recycle. Their hooker made a good crash ball through the middle of their centers, and while he was tacked, he managed to offload to one of their backs who ran the ball in for a well worked try.
Into the second half, it was real end to end stuff, with both teams kicking well into corners and free space. They managed to score again, when we were down to 14 men as a result of your author here being yellow carded for a midfield altercation with their hooker. Alas their try came from another classic J4 failing from last year, when we get sucked in towards the ball, and left space out wide. We defended well for a few phases, but eventually they had a 3 or 4 man overlap and scored a pretty easy try to be honest.
We got our try quite soon after. We had been camped in their 22 for a while; eventually we won a lineout, and managed a number of phases of play over and back, inside the 22. Low and behold Laois\'s favorite son John Egan found himself over the line, with about 24 CYM players on his back and he managed to touch the ball down for a good team score.
We were camped in their 22 for pretty much the rest of the game, and were there or thereabouts and got over the line and were held up more than once. If we were guilty of anything here it was a bit of panic, we were flinging the ball out the back of rucks, giving Fidel little or no chance, and the backs were passing to static men, and therefore going backwards. Its classic game 1 of the season problems, nothing some training and a few games together wont sort out.
Alas with no time left on the clock we tried a miracle pass, which did not work out, and they intercepted, and ran the length of the field and scored to give the score board a *very* flattering look from their point of view [in my opinion].
Overall: It was the same old story for the J4 forwards, where we had them for breakfast in the scrum and were winning [or at least spoiling] a lot of their lineout ball. But alas our lack of fitness was telling in general play all over the park, and I only saw it when I spent my own 10 minutes on the side. Our forwards littered the field and did stuff in ones or twos, where their forwards were hunting in packs of 3 or more, and as a result they turned over a lot of our ball [as the J3 team does to us on a Thursday night]. That would be deffo, be something we have to work on, as a team, at training.
Positives:
Some flashes of brilliant play from largely an entire new backline
Some good forward work, from a new pack
Kept going until the very end, and should have scored a try to level things up
Negatives:
2 Yellow Cards [regardless if they were stupid or not, it\'s still disappointing]
Overall Fitness of everyone on the team
Our lineout fell apart in 2nd half, after a few changes of hooker
We turned over a lot of ball in rucks and mauls
A lot of our tackling was high, need to hit lads down low
Man of Match:
I would give it to Darragh at 6. He was training more than most of us all of last season and never got a break into the team at all. This was therefore his first start for the club, and he was going until the very end, mixing it up all day, and made some a bunch of very good tackles in broken play. He should have a nice black eye for his troubles this morning, which should go down a treat in Coppers!
Match report by Joe O´Reilly