Rugby

Roscrea break free to progress with defeat of CBC Monkstown

Leinster Schools Senior Cup, first-round: Tries from Adi Donovan and Finbarr Crowley set up victory

Monkstown’s Shane O’Hanrahan tackles Conor Kelly of Roscrea during their Leinster Schools Senior Cup match at Castle Avenue, Clontarf, Dublin. Photograph: Inpho

Fri Feb 3 2017 - 18:26

Cistercian College Roscrea 12 CBC Monkstown 6.

It took two tries in three minutes to break open this Leinster Senior Cup first-round match on the 4G pitch at Castle Avenue.

The bitter cold and constant rain made life difficult and it would come down to coping skills.

CBC liked to move the ball out to Cameron Watson and James Reynolds to make something happen. However, the Roscrea defence was watertight and they restricted Monkstown to playing in their own half.

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In the meantime, the Roscrea forwards went to work on the edges while not neglecting to use centres Adi Donovan and Philip O'Shea. This pair did the damage for the breakthrough, O'Shea's footwork and speed making room for Donovan to take his inside pass to the line for fullback Tadhg Bird to convert in the 27th minute.

It didn’t take them long to increase the advantage when Donovan broke to within 10 metres of the posts for scrumhalf Finbarr Crowley to dive over smartly for 12-0 at the break.

CBC needed something to get them going and they found it from James Reynolds penalty in the 38th minute. The fullback returned for his second three-pointer for offside in the 55th minute.

However, they could not create the gilt-edged chanced they were looking for and Roscrea will point to the 2-0 try-count as reason enough for their passage to the quarter-final.

ROSCREA: T Bird; B Hyland, P O'Shea A Donovan, P Keane; C Kelly (capt), F Crowley; J Wycherley, T Byrne, M Milne, R Lomas, N Moylett, C Walsh, R Enraght-Moony, J Brandon. Replacements: D Maher for Wycherley 19 mins; J Cahir for Byrne 51 mins; J Culleton for Keane 56 mins; B Murphy for Bird 65 mins - temp. CBC: J Reynolds; C Newman, C Watson, D Forster, L Sweeney; S Power, S O'Hanrahan; M Read, M Theunissen, C Kavanagh, R Ivers, E Vaughan, R Doyle, Z Sattar, E Clarke (capt). Replacements: H Shaw for Forster 37 mins; C Byrne for Theunissen 54 mins. Referee: H O'Reilly (Leinster Branch).

Ends….

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