Stillorgan RFC J3 Blitz Report by our beloved Captain
Garrett Fanning
1st match Stillorgan 1 V Lansdowne 0
We made a great start to this match and stunned Lansdowne who were not expecting it. Lansdowne did not have experienced props so agreed to uncontested scrums. Our rucking was much better in this game and our lineouts were very good competing on their ball too. IN the first 5 minutes we were camped on their line but just failed to score as I was bumped into touch once 5ms out. Then about 7mins into the game we got a scrum 5m did old faithful (X1 option) from their line and I scored just right of the posts to lead 1-0. Colm got injured twisting his ankle so we had to rejig the backline with Carlos coming into first centre and Greg moving to fullback with Caesar coming on in the wing. Lansdowne came back at us but some great defence held them out, we were a bit stretched at times but good communication between players held them out. The game ended with Dave the second row breaking out of our 22 outpacing most of their team with the full back to beat he passed inside to Fidel who unfortunately gave a forward pass back to Dave with the line at his mercy. After this we had a 20 min break which we went back into the changing rooms to recuperate from a very fast open game.
2nd Match Stillorgan 1 V Wanderers 2
This game started with a bit of confusion as Wanderers only had 14 men. The referee insisted that we drop a player even though I think we were the only team to play them with 14 men. We had contested scrums in this game with only 7 forwards. This was our worst game in the blitz against a very well organised Wanderers team who kept pinning the ball into the corners as their outhalf had a big boot. From one of these big boots to our left hand corner, Wanders won a ruck ball against the head, our backs were out of position and they scored out on the wing. Our rucking was not as good in this match and we lost quite a bit of ball in contact. We tried a few of our new moves with a lot of them not coming off due to balls been dropped or robbed. They scored a second try not long after that through the forwards. For the last 5 minutes we started to play some good rugby which led to a great try by Eoin after about 10 passes just right of their posts. We continued attacking till the end but just could not break through to equalise.
3rd Match Stillorgan 1 V Trinity 0
Straight after the Wanderers game we played Trinity who were a very young team who tried to run everything. We had a much improved performance with a great lineout with Donnacha and Dave doing very well winning all our ball and stealing a lot of theirs. Carlos scored a great try in this match showing great speed in an arcing run into the left hand corner. Again we showed some great defence in this game against the Students as they never really looked like scoring. We probably should have scored a few more tries and came close on a couple of occasions. Our rucking was a lot better then the previous game and lineouts were excellent.
4th Match Stillorgan 2 V Clontarf 2
Clontarf had been unbeaten when we met them and had a lot of under 20s on their team. We played well in this game with a pretty even contest in forwards with our lineout working well when it went in straight LOL. We got off to a good start as Clontarf tried to counter attack off a loose kick their winger through a long pass to their centre which I managed to get me hand to and regather and sprint 50m around the cover to score. Clontarf came back strong and after repelling a number of their lineouts we got a 5m scrum. They managed to disrupt our scrum so Eoin only just got touch the ball their outhalf kicked it on 3m jumped on it to score. Carlos then hurt his back and had to come off so Frank had to step into 1st centre. Clontarf came back at us after the kick-off and put a lot of pressure on our line. Eventually a forward went around the side of ruck to score, getting through our fringe defences. From the kick-off we put pressure on them again and from this pressure Clontarf tried to run the ball out with the outhalf trying to flick the ball out of a tackle which I gratefully received to sprint again 50m a bit cheekily teasing their winger to score the equalising try. With only a minute left they did a quick kick-off and managed to recover the ball but we held out which Eoin kicking the ball into touch in the last play.