Clongowes crash out!
St. Michael’s College 21
Clongowes Wood College 13
Daire Walsh
Leinster Schools Senior Cup quarter final
DESPITE producing a very promising opening period performance, Clongowes Wood College’s quest to reclaim the Powerade Leinster Schools Senior Cup ultimately came up short in Donnybrook last Friday afternoon, as reigning Champions St Michael’s College moved forward to the penultimate stage of this year’s competition at the end of a very entertaining encounter.
The Dublin school had started the game brightly, as they aimed to force Clongowes on the back-foot in the early exchanges. Their strong, forceful play eventually led to a 30-metre penalty in a central position, which Michael’s out-half Ross Byrne (who remains from the team that defeated Clongowes in 2012) coolly slotted between the posts.
This was exactly the kind of start that the holders would have been searching for, but their opponents responded superbly, and looked like they should have been awarded a try nine minutes in when winger Alan Jeffers appeared to ground on the left flank following a neat off-load by Fergal Cleary.
The decision didn’t go the way of Clongowes’ No. 11 on this occasion, but his side’s sense of injustice didn’t last long, as the resultant scrum found its way towards right-wing Cian O’Donoghue, who crossed over in the corner to give Clongowes the lead for the very first time.
This gave O’Donoghue his third try of the campaign following his brace against St Gerard’s, Bray, and even though full-back Cillian Burke came up short with the subsequent conversion, the north Kildare boys increased their cushion after 21 minutes, when flanker Stephen Keelan drove over at the end of a powerful maul to the left of the Michael’s posts.
Burke was once again wide of the mark with his bonus kick, and this meant that Byrne was able to reduce his team’s deficit to four with another penalty just three minutes later. Indeed, Byrne had the opportunity to bring the arrears to the bare minimum with a minute of normal time remaining, but his close-range place-kick surprisingly came crashing off the crossbar before falling away to safety.
This meant that Clongowes had four points to spare (10-6) over Michael’s at the start of the second half, which presented them with an excellent chance to make the Leinster Senior Cup semi-final stage for a fourth consecutive year.
Byrne did bring the Clongowes ascendancy down to one with his third penalty of the contest from a short distance, but Burke was quick to respond for the 2010/2011 winners, as his first successful kick of the tie brought the Clongowes margin back up to four.
As the final 25 minutes of action beckoned, though, Michael’s were starting to display the mark of true Champions, and following an extended period of pressure on 47 minutes, Redmond was able to squeeze over the line for the southsiders’ opening five-pointer of the game.
This was a major set-back for Clongowes, but thanks to an attempted charge down for the Michael’s conversion, they were able to put Byrne off his stride to a strong enough degree that his kick tailed past the post.
Nevertheless, Clongowes were forced to chase the game once again, and despite enjoying a couple of decent spells of possession, it was Michael’s who were looking the more threatening as the action wore on, and Coulson put the outcome beyond doubt when he drove over for a converted try with eight minutes of normal time left.
This put eight points between the teams, leaving Clongowes with too much to do the closing stages. To their credit, they did press strongly for the remainder of the fixture (which included almost ten minutes of stoppage time), but they simply couldn’t break down a very disciplined Michael’s rearguard.
CLONGOWES WOOD COLLEGE: Cillian Burke; Cian O’Donoghue, William Lappin, Sebastian Fromm, Alan Jeffers; Fergal Cleary, Philip Maher; Alex Dudeney, Dylan Donnellan, David Garty; Conor Gleeson, Robbie Collins; Will Connors, Stephen Keelan, Stephen McVeigh. Replacements: Colm Mulcahy for Lappin (50), Josh Pimm for Collins (62), James Lyons for Donnellan (68), Ben Osborne for Jeffers (76).
ST MICHAEL’S COLLEGE: Cian Kelleher; Mikey O’Hare, Adam Leavy, Matthew Gilsenan, Dan Green; Ross Byrne, Nick McCarthy; Harry Redmond, Richie Allen, Denis Coulson; Ross Molony, James Ryan; Charlie Cregan, Alex Penny, Josh Murphy. Replacements: Conor Duffy for Allen (67), Nick Quane for Coulson (67), Gavin Duffy for O’Hare (69), Michael Craig for Penny (76), Max Deegan for Murphy (78).