Naas 7-36 Stillorgan
J3 League - Feb 24, 2008
On a lovelly day Sunny day Stillorgan J3s eventually took to the pitch after some players took the scenic route around the Kildare countryside looking for the Ground. On a pitch that made our back pitch look like Holland we kicked off playing up the mountain
Liam came off his sickbed to resume at outhalf. We started really well moving Naas all over the park pushing the ball wide at every opportunity, I doubt the wingers have seen as much ball so early in a game this season. After a good break by Pat Fitz the ball got offloaded and moved out wide for Padraic to score - liam hit the post with his conversion. This was to be one of his last contributions as he soon went off injured with Mac coming into centre and Brian moving to wing forward. Dave stronge came in on the wing. We quickly scored again after some Geordan murphyesque defending by Naas in the corner. I think it was Pat fitz who scored, Liam got a good conversion.
We continued to put pressure on Naas making lots of line breaks but not finishing them off. .We started doing a number of 50/50 passes that were not coming off. We then had about 6 5m scrums in a row but we did not get a clean ball out from one of them!! Their scrumhalf kept getting at bull or they spined it around and we were picking up messy ball. The one time we thought we had clean ball Mark scored from our signature move only for it to be pulled back for a peno to Naas. Mac did not last too long in the centre and had to come off injured so Eoin came on with Bull moving to flanker and brian back to the centre This was probally our worst period of the match but we did eventually ground out another score through the forwards and some good Mauling - either Johnny belton or Pat fitz got that (not sure of exact order of when they scored) just before half time.
Second half we were playing down the mountain, we said we would play it in their half. We were putting them under pressure and they were not really making any breaks against us. We would get into their half but then give away a stupid penalty- this will hurt us against better teams. After another 10 mins we got our bonus point try with some lovelly mauling by the pack with either Pat fitz/johnny b getting the final touchdown. They were not happy with the decision and one of their forwards got sin binned. We continued to put the pressure but again we gave away stupid Penalties to relieve the pressure from them, the ref was sick of all our bitching. Eventually Pat Fitz had sympathy pangs for the other 2 Castleisland boys on the sideline and got himself sinbinned.
This led to Naas's best spell of the game where they had a series of penalties where they continued to put pressure on our line. We defended well but kept give away Penos. Eventually they got over a try where they mauled it off a lineout from about 20ms out which they converted. They switched their outhalf and the replacement was much better but they did not ever look like breaking through.
We got back into their half once we had the full compliment on the pitch and continued to pressurise their line eventually Bull spotted a gap to score which liam converted. We did not let them out of their half for the rest of the game and Brian made a nice break selling a lovely dummy to score near the posts which was converted to finish the match off.
Overall excellent win away securing a bonus point especially as we were missing quite a few players and picked up a few injuries as well.
Pros- we showed the depth of our squad with some players swithing between the pack and backs without it having any negative impact. We showed we can change our game plan and take teams out wide as well as up front which is great.
Room for Improvement Scrums not sure what happened with all the scrums near the line that we did not secure ball from - maybe this is an area we can work on.
Backs sometimes we are all taking that extra step making our pass that much more difficult and we passed that half second earlier we would not be throwing so many 50/50 balls
Discipline- the penalty count against us was terrible and it was the only Naas got into our half!! Too many people are talking to the refs which is putting the refs against us. Against Better teams this will cost us a match and is something that we need to seriously work on with only the captain, pack leader and back leader only talking to the ref! We need to have 15 players on the pitch and there is nothing stupidier then running in from 20ms to get involved in some niggle that does not involve you and could get you carded. We have the best defence in the League, lets rely on that!!
Clontarf next Sunday they are a big senior club they are probally not happy at having to come to us so they could load a team against us so we need to be ready for them!!
Match report by Garrett Fanning