Stillorgan 42 - Bective 0
J3 League - Dec 5, 2004
Stillorgan started the game playing up the infamous hill and found themselves predominantly in their own half for the first 40 minutes. However there were a couple of forays in the opposion half. 2 of which yielded 2 penalties which were ably converted by Paul Fadden. Stillorgan sucked up any pressure in this half, everyone tackled well and defended numerous scrums close to our line. There were a couple of minutes of very effective recycling by the pack and backs did their best to penetrate the defense, but we never got close to the Bective line. Donnacha stood his ground well against a 5 yard penalty and showed Bective a bit of Stillorgan metal.
The second half has a different story we lifted our game a couple of notches and took advantage of the hill. Anytime we found ourselves in our own half we cleared down the pitch. Patrick kicked well behind the Bective cover and Ken, Gus, Garrett and Paul followed up and consolidated any advantage. Then the tries started to come.
The pack won the possession - well done everyone in the pack from the kickoffs to the getting round the pitch in support. They also sucked in the cover with off the ball runners (I think all the pack had a go, 'even Nigel'), then a very tired Ronan McCabe (he hadn't slept for days...thanks Bull) passed quickly to Patrick, who in turn distributed well. Danny and the loose forwards got moving both in attack and in support. As the pressure went on Bective, their defense opened up. This resulted in 5 tries, Garrett (2), Paul, Patrick and Gus. Danny came close a couple of times. We had a lot of possession even tough we lost a lot of lineouts. This is definitely the weakest part of our game and we need to find some answers in this area.
Thanks to Danny for doing a great job as pack leader it's a hard job being captain from full back. Patrick was man of the match, scoring a great individual try and playing very well in a position he hasn't played for a long time. Thanks also to the subs, without a strong panel of players we would have been in trouble with the injuries in both our games so far.