St Mary’s make early gains

St Mary’s College 15 St Gerard’s, Bray 6: FIRST-HALF tries from David Mathews and Neil Walsh were crucial at Stradbrook yesterday, as St Mary’s College progressed to the second round of the Leinster Junior Cup after a scrappy encounter with St Gerard’s of Bray.

Mary’s had started the game at full tilt, with Niall Hughes and Terry Kennedy putting real pressure on the Gerard’s back division.

The Wicklow-based side dealt well with the early Mary’s onslaught, however, and after some good pressure towards the opposition line, they took the lead via a close-range penalty from Adam Simmonds eight minutes in.

The Rathmines school were quick to respond, restoring parity a minute later with a penalty from Kennedy.

This helped to settle Mary’s, and they recorded their first try after 16 minutes when Mathews grounded to the right of the posts following good scrummaging from prop Michael McCormack.

Kennedy was on hand to convert the score, and it was added to by a second try from the pacy Walsh just four minutes before the break.

That gave Mary’s a 12-point cushion (15-3).

Mary’s continued to dominate upon the restart, with Kennedy and Dan O’Connor close to adding to their side’s advantage, but it was the Bray school who came up with the next score of the game, as a second penalty from Simmonds cut the margin down to nine with 15 minutes remaining.

ST MARY’S COLLEGE: T Kennedy; D O’Connor, N Hughes, D Mathews, N Walsh; D Boyle, M Fogarty; M McCormack, M Hoey, D Flood, G Kennedy, N Curran, M Kinneen, B Maher, J Farrell. Replacements: D Galvin for Kinneen (half-time), S McCahill for O’Connor (49 mins), G Murphy for McCormack (57 mins).

ST GERARD’S, BRAY: M Gallagher; S O’Reilly, A Lynch, A Simmonds, A Gilsenan-Kavanagh; M O’Brien, S Murray; S O’Shaugnessy, S Gallagher, R Boland, M O’Toole, G Martin, B O’Reilly, D Smith, J Maguire. Replacements: B Kealy for Gallagher (38 mins), R Delaney for Martin (65 mins).

Referee: C Reynolds (Leinster Branch).