Monkstown 8-13 Stillorgan
J3 Friendly - Sep 23, 2007
Our first outing of the New season against another J3 team in Sydney parade. With a few late dropouts especially in the backs we started with rearranged backline and lots of new players making their Debuts in the Forwards.
We played against the slight Wind towards the clubhouse in the first half. Monkstown started off quite well using the wind and put early pressure on us. They had a number of Lineouts close to the line which they mauled very well but some great defense by the forwards held them out. The scrum was functioning well with 2 new players in the front row Issel our first Mexican hooker and James doing well causing them problems in the scrum. Doddsy (unlike Paul O Connell) was causing them all sorts of problems in the lineout robbing lots of ball.
Thankfully their tank of a centre went off early enough as he was causing a few probs down the Blindside. The backs were making breaks on the outside but often the final pass was not going to hand. Eoin starting on the wing in the first half. Marcin was causing them all sorts of problems one break and pass gave Garrett a one on one with the fullback which he scored from and converted. Not 100% sure of the scoring sequence but I think got a penalty next to make the score 7-3.
We then start to exert pressure in their half and we got a penalty which Garrett converted to make the score 10-3. They came straight up the pitch and scored a soft enough try where a mix up in defence between 1st centre and outhalf let in their outhalf on the right, they missed the convert. They continued to pound out line but our defense which was summed up in a huge hit by Doddsy on their big lad held out- he had to go off, doddsy shoulder is still recovering.
Second half a couple of subs were brought on, they brought on their Secret weapon of Paul (ex player on the wing). Shane Kenny who only got a call at 1.30pm came on the wing but he could not resist the lull of the forwards and was back amongst them soon enough. We were on their line for long periods but not get over the line with wrong options (missed overlaps) dropped passes leading to missed try opportunities. Liam and Marcin were probing the line with no luck, Keavan had a couple of half breaks. The pressure eventually led to a penalty which Garrett converted to make it 13-8.
From here though it was all Monkstown they pounded our line turning down kicks for goal to go for lineouts. We were giving away alot of silly blatant penalties and the ref (who looked like he had just come from the surf club at home and away) got sick of it and Sin binned Ross Durrin. No matter how hard they tried though they could not score with great hits from the forwards, keavan as well. There was great spirit shown to hold them - actually was very similar to our game here last year.
To sum up good win, as I am sure people will have noticed our fitness needs to improve you only really notice it in Games. Another area that needs to be worked on is Defense when Forwards are committing to rucks which we have already lost. Players need to fan out across the field with players calling others out. A good team could have scored quite a few tries on the blindside when there was big overlaps with alot on Alan.
Well done All- lets keep it up as we will need to improve when we play better teams in the upcoming months.
Match report by Garrett Fanning