Stillorgan 39-0 Royal College of Surgeons
J3 League - Nov 11, 2007
Well given Richie is busy I will do the honours. On a lovely day in Bird Avenue for rugby we faced RCSI for the second time in the league. They had probally given us our hardest game in quite a while in our first match. At the last minute Nigel tactically switched pitches from the Hill pitch to the other much wider pitch so he could maximise his superior fitness!!
We played with the breeze in the first half playing towards the trees. We put them under pressure straight from the kickoff with a lovely sweeping movement between backs and forwards across the pitch but they just held out. They could not hold out for long though and again we spread the ball from side to side after Alan barged through the middle., Danny got the ball 15yds from the line with no one in front of him. He ran towards the line at about the same speed as the slow-mo fight sequences in the Matrix beforeoffloading to stephen who juggled a bit to score in the corner. From the next kickoff we again put pressure on them playing the ball in their half, Pat was back to his AFL style catching best off kickoffs and running it back hard at them.
More pressure and some great interpassing led to baby shanahan (sorry brian) scoring his first try for the club. I think Timmy converted that one. We started to get a more frantic here and were kicking some silly balls away and trying some stuff that wasn't on but it was that kind of game.
The ref who reffed us in the first game against RCSI disallowed what looked like a try from nigel and also pulled us back for a knock on when it looked like we were going to score. Our 3rd try followed when Garrett ignored Keavan outside him to dummy the winger to score. The forwards were playing very well dominating the lineout and scummaging well. Timmy got a nice penalty as well. We continued to chase the 4th try bonus point but took a while to score - Keavan deciding because the winger was only small he would try and run over him rather then around him. Eventually we did get our 4th try when Finn blocked down a kick regathered and scored under the posts - Timmy converted.
Second half we were playing against the breeze and they started to put a bit more pressure but we held on. Then we scored out best try of the match, Pat broke up the middle again who passed to Danny who did a lovelly reverse pass to Doddsy who moved the ball along the backs which ended up with a lovelly switch between Garrett and Mac for Mac to pop his cherry on the try front for the club. After this alot of the teams got reschuffled around with alot of the backs changing positions with an eye on next week and some of the subs coming off the bench in the pack as well. Royal college of Surgeons started to use the wind a bit better and put us pressure in our half without ever looking like scoring. We did though get back into their 22 when Liam got the ball did a lovely chip over the rushing defense to regather to score a Lovelly try, timmy converted.
For the last 20 mins we were camped in our own half and we could not get out. We started to make errors with passes missing their targets which needs to be worked on and players started to visibily tire as it had been quite a fast open game. RCSI continued to pressurise us but everyone did their bit. We did not score again and they never really looked like scoring - our discipline was good not giving away too many penalties for a final score of 39-0.
We cannot get too carried away with this as this was obviously a hell of alot weaker team then the one we played in the first game and Naas will be alot tougher next week.
Positives
Lineout was very good, rucking pretty good and maul worked well, handling was good too at times.
Things to work on
Defense while very good in the last 20 mins players were getting tired and walking around and not fanning out across the pitch. There was a couple of times there was big overlaps and better teams could have scored a few tries. If we are not going to win a ruck then go Pillar/post and fan out across the pitch in defence- always talk in defence to your nearest men.
We did make mistakes at times, missed passes, wrong decisions etc lets learn by these and not start giving out to each other including myself :-)
Overall another great win and let in no points, there are are at least 3 backs missing next week so need everyone down training as people could be playing in new positions which they need to get familar with.
Match report by Garrett Fanning