Cistercian College, Roscrea 31 St Mary’s College 14: Leinster Schools’ Junior Cup: Adi Donovan was the hero at Donnybrook yesterday, as his hat-trick of tries helped Cistercian College Roscrea to make a perfect start to their Leinster Schools Junior Cup campaign.

St Mary’s College out-half Ruairi Shields opened the scoring with an outstanding 6th minute penalty, but following an error in defence from the subsequent attack, Roscrea centre Jay Culliton secured the first try of the game.

Mary’s did regain the lead thanks to a brace of Shields penalties, before No 8 Luke Rigney powered over to give Roscrea a 14-9 interval advantage.

The Tipperary-based school subsequently doubled their cushion four minutes after the restart with Donovan’s opening try, but this was cancelled out by Sean Bourke’s 51st minute score for Mary’s.

However, thanks to further five-pointers in the 55th and 65th minutes by the exceptional Donovan, Roscrea sealed a comprehensive triumph.

Scorers for Cistercian College Roscrea: A Donovan 3 tries, J Culliton, L Rigney try each, E Browne 3 cons.

Scorers for St Mary’s College: S Bourke try, R Shields 3 pens.

CISTERCIAN COLLEGE ROSCREA: R O’Halloran; M O’Leary, J Culliton, A Donovan, R Deacy; E Browne, L Crowley; R Lomas, J Cahir, K Fitzgerald; J Corcoran, D Power; M Milne, J O Cinneide, L Rigney.

Replacements: B Murphy for Culliton (50), D Loughnane for Power (61), L Culliton for O Cinneide (65).

ST MARY’S COLLEGE: T McMahon; H Conway, P Masterson, M Dillon, N Hurley; R Shields, S Bourke; G O’Brien, E Power, G Hassett; M Grace, M Henihan; O Byrne, H McSweeney, S Heeran.

Replacements: S O’Reilly for Power, C McElearney for Byrne (both 40), J Holdenfor Dillon (53), Dillon for Masterson (55), G Potts for Hassett, C Johnston for Bourke (both 58), N Horan for Grace, C Nulty for Henihan, D McAuliffe for Shields (all 61), Shields for Hurley (65).