Stillorgan RFC 20 - Old Wesley RFC 13
J4 League - Nov 16, 2006
A bright afternoon, coupled with a biting wind blowing down the Bird Avenue hill, greeted the men of the Parish and the visitors from Old Wesley for the second J4 match of the season.
Marshalled by a determined Fidel as captain, the squad convened for a warmup which focused the minds of those selected on the task in hand. It was time to make up for the disappointment of Terenure two weeks ago. Warm ups completed Fidel named a starting team which excluded those who arrived late. It is obviously Fidel's intention to award those who take the cause seriously with places on the starting XV, that means showing for training AND being on time!
With the team selected and warmups completed, Old Wesley had 11 players on-field for kick-off and a twelfth man en-route from the dressing-room. As the game progressed more arrived, bringing their final number to 14 by the final whistle.
It is fair to say that despite the initial three-man advantage, play was very much even, which isn't necessarily a good thing. Old Wesley made the game hard, capitalising on having both the hill and the wind in the first half. Some intelligent kicking on their behalf, coupled with keeping the ball in rucks as far as possible led to them being awarded an easy penalty after about 6 minutes. Following this, Stillorgan worked hard, making good progress up the hill and Niall making light work of finding touch from penalties. This was rewarded with a penalty which other out-halves may have put into a corner. Niall stuck it between the posts to level up the scores.
Wesley then put in a good display, keeping Stillorgen pegged into their own half. This was punctuated with handling errors which, in part, can be put down to the cold conditions. Wesley's pressure was to build to a converted try. Under the sticks, Ger roused the men with his trademark "the hill is worth five points" speech, which was almost immediately followed by a superb forwards' try put over by Donough and the conversion again ably taken by Niall.
At the turn, with the score at 10 apiece, Fidel made several changes, most notably putting Ross in at No. 9 after a good first half from Ronan.
Ross's input was to change up the patterns which had become a little predictable and forward focused in the first half. Use was made of the extra man overlap and the backs eventually got some ball and a chance to run at the Wesley backs. Some hard work going forward and hard tackles in defence saw Donough go over the whitewash one more time and Niall converted the try and put over another penalty. For perhaps 10 minutes then, Wesley put in extreme effort to break the Stillorgan defence, the reward being just three points. Their urgency in attempting to get the try and the draw was met with some bone-cruching tackling by Milky who's only concern was stopping the huge second row who didn't learn his lesson from the first run he made at him!
The game finished 20-13, giving the J4s their first win of the season and based on the performance there's no reason for it to be the last.
Notable performances came from Niall at out-half. Superb kicking from hand and for penalties although a lot of overlaps were missed out wide in favour of the inside ball, which the opposition soon copped. Ross O'Donovan in the second half changed the patterns and left Wesley at odds as there was no way of knowing if there was going to be a darting run or a fast pass out. Donough, two tries... Need we say more. Milky for making superb tackles when it seemed that nobody else knew how to! Bryan for put-ins on the lineout that would have done any hooker proud in the winds faced on Saturday. Not a single lineout missed, if I recall correctly. The pack collectively for making the line-outs and set pieces work.
The thing to watch is at times Wesley progressed unheeded until they met Milkey, everyone has to make tackles.
One thing that springs to mind when watching (or playing) J4 rugby with Stillorgan is the lack of familiarity, with a lot of new players on board as well as guys playing between both teams within the club. This week has proved that with some committment the J4 team is competitive and will improve when the team gets to know each other. With training comes familiarity and an awareness of your team mates' abilities.
Match report by Michael Kirwan