Hiney stays cool at death to keep CUS on the march

Thursday February 09 2012

CUS 16 CBC MONKSTOWN 13

Marc Hiney was the hero in Anglesea Road yesterday, as his 70th-minute penalty secured Catholic University School’s passage to the second round of the Leinster Senior Cup following a tight and tense encounter with CBC Monkstown.

Monkstown started at a great tempo and just five minutes into the contest, left-wing Adam Swan got through for a try in the corner. Centre Tom O’Reilly was off-target with the subsequent conversion.

CUS grew into the contest, though and, following a missed penalty each from Ruadhan Magee and CBC’s Sean Kearns, captain Barry Keelan registered a fantastic try just before the break.

advantage

This proved to be a major confidence-booster for CUS, as a successful penalty on the right from out-half Hiney (for which CBC right-wing Ben Howard was sin-binned) ensured that they held an 8-5 interval advantage.

Keelan came up trumps for them once again after the break, kicking the ball ahead before grounding for his second try.

CBC were dogged, though, and were back on level terms by the 55th minute, when a superb try by centre Michael Courtney came just moments after an expertly converted penalty by Kearns.

The tie looked to be heading for a replay when Hiney’s 67th-minute penalty drifted wide, but he made amends on the stroke of full-time from 30 metres, much to the delight of their support.

CUS — C Divney; K Lynsky, R Magee, A Neary, J Fallon-Doran; M Hiney, M O’Driscoll; J Fisher, B Keelan, M McCann, D Gahan, J Gavin (N Gilson 50), K Beakey, A Quinlan, M Beakey.

CBC MONKSTOWN — D Jordan; B Howard, M Courtney, T O’Reilly, A Swan; M Rogers, S Kearns; A Heffernan, S Moore, K Patterson (C Cunningham 50), H Warren, M Shirin (J McGrath 59), J Brown, A Brennan (D Hanney 42), M O’Mahoney.

Ref — N Correll (Leinster Branch).