Dublin University 0-38 Stillorgan
J3 League - Feb 13, 2008
The now legendary Stillorgan J3 brought the Lights of Alsaa into action last night. With the co operation of Trinity the game was moved from their home ground to Swords RFC under floodlights. once everyone bar one had hacked their way through fog and Dublin traffic we took to a foggy floodlight pitch at 7.15. After a few words of encouragement from our captain ( oh sorry he was the only one who took the M50 and wasn't there) and the traditional warm up We were ready for battle. We took to the pitch for KO @ 8pm with our captain who had just arrived.
As usual this J3 team started well again with a lot of possession and good phased possession. This would have been turned into points with a bit more composure. 1st major scoring chance came to Trinity when their centre intercepted one of our various silly forced passed and looked like he would run the 80 meters to score only for Pat Fitz to catch him and even turn over ball. After a few more waves of attack we managed to get over the line for what looked like a good score only for a 5 meter scrum to be awarded. Stillorgan held firm in the scrum and passed out wide for mac to step in and set up a position in front of the posts and pauric crashed over under the posts. Timmy converted to give Stillorgan a 7 - 0 lead. This looked like it would settle us and we could march on from their. Unfortunately due to more forced passed and silly knock ons no more points were to come in the half. 7 - 0 half time
The half time speech was obvious. slow things down and play more controlled rugby and this happened. 5 mins into the half after several controlled rucks we found space out wide for myself to score Timmy converted and we were 14 - 0. Our goal was to get 4 tries giving us the important bonus point. We started to play a more expansive game and found a lot of gaps. After a good line break from Fin Mac found himself in open country out left and scored no conversion this time so 19 - 0 and looking good. The last 20 mins saw the champagne rugby which we are used to seeing. We bagged another 3 tries from Gar, Stephen & Doddsy leaving a final score of 38 - 0. Great result in poor conditions.
Positives
- Good set pieces
- Bonus point win
- Opponents kept to 0 again
- Good interplay between backs and forwards.
- great support on the sidelines by non players.
improvements
- a bit frantic in the 1st half
- Bull was the only sub not to score
Match report by Jonathan Plunkett