Monkstown 58 - Stillorgan 0
J4 League - Dec 11, 2004
We had a lot of players who could not make it at the last minute with illness, injuries and work commitments. All of them had to be backs. Fortunately enough forwards arrived so we could field a team and honor our fixture. A lot of people played out of position.
Monkstown were short a player and elected to start with 14 players. The ref said we had to match this and we agreed. Monkstown's 15 man showed up and they wanted to put him on. We elected to stay at 14 and the ref asked town to match this. An argument between the Ref and town captain resulted in the captain getting 10 minutes in the bin. We continued the match and got soundly beaten. Leo got a split eye and the ref would not allow any substitutes. After some sideline negotiations we were eventually allowed to bring on a sub. I didn't ask the score so I can't give it.
We worked hard and had some good possession and everyone carried the ball but when they got the ball out to their backs we could not match them.
A bad day at the office.
There were some positives from the match. Our lineout operated very well with James Kenny at 2. Town knew where the ball was going but could not do anything about it. Great work from Ronan, James, Noel & Pete.
Some of the guys really worked hard and put in some great tackles.
Man of the match for Stillorgan was Pete Duberry. He worked very hard, made some great tackles, stole lots of ball and made covering runs.
I think we all learned some lessons from this and hopefully they stick with us into the New Year and make us a better team.
Match report by Ger Cregan