Leinster Senior Cup: Belvedere College 32 Gonzaga College 5

A second-quarter scoring spree provided the perfect platform at Donnybrook for Belvedere College, who became the sixth team to make the Leinster Schools’ Senior Cup quarter-finals with a comfortable win over Gonzaga College yesterday.

No 8 Tom De Jongh powerfully reached over for the opening try on 23 minutes, before additional tries by centre James McKeown and Hugh O’Sullivan gave Belvo a 19-0 interval lead.

Any hope their Ranelagh rivals had of forcing their way back into the reckoning were dashed by Sean Long’s touchdown for the Great Denmark Street school four minutes after the restart. Gonzaga opened their account with a hard-earned try from full-back Barry Goulding eight minutes from the end, but scrum-half O’Sullivan had the final say for Belvo with his second score in stoppage-time.

Scorers for Belvedere College: H O’Sullivan 2 tries, T De Jongh, J McKeown, S Long try each, C Jennings pen, 2 cons.

Scorers for Gonzaga College: B Goulding try.

BELVEDERE: E Cleere; H Sexton, J McKeown, S Long, O McGrath; C Jennings, H O’Sullivan; M Sweeney, F Dillon-Kelly, A Hynes; C McCaffrey, B Egan; J Iredale, M Kearney, T De Jongh.

Replacements: J Clarke for Dillon-Kelly, G O’Kelly for Cleere, D Monaghan for McGrath (all 62), D Boylan for Sexton, R McGreevy for McKeown (both 70), J Kenny for Hynes, C Galvin for McCaffrey (both 74).

GONZAGA: B Goulding; J Daly-Devereux, H Brennan, C Gowing, M Barrett; R McKeever, N Peters; F Keane, C Gleeson, E Coyle; T Costelloe, H O’Grady; P Ryan, D Meenan, R Layden.

Replacements: J MacNamara for Costelloe (50), C Cosgrove for Keane (63), K White for Gleeson, D Coyle for Coyle, JJ O’Shea for Meenan, J Sheehan for Goulding (all 66).

Referee: D Blake (Leinster Rugby Branch).