Junior Cup/ Newbridge College 21 Skerries CC 11: Newbridge College finished strongly in the final 10 minutes to emerge as clear winners in a tightly fought and highly entertaining quarter-final match against Skerries CC at Lakelands Park in Terenure yesterday.
Captain Connor Browne ended Skerries' hopes with two well struck drop goals. He had earlier added another drop goal in the first minute of the game, and he also converted two magnificent tries scored by centre Darragh Hennebry.
Skerries had fought brilliantly throughout the match and had territorial advantage for most of the game. After Browne had scored his opening drop goal Harry Dawson struck back immediately with a penalty and this was followed up after eight minutes by a try by fullback Michael Sherlock.
But Newbridge brought the scores level with a try after good movement by the three-quarter line put Hennebry in.
Skerries were very unlucky not to score just before half-time after a series of five metres scrums but the half-time scoreline read 8-8.
Skerries started the second half where they had left off and strong lineout pressure was rewarded when Dawson dropped a goal.
But Newbridge's Hennebry scored the try of the match when he raced right around the Skerries defence and ran under the posts to give Browne an easy conversion. Browne then dropped his two goals, one after 53 minutes and another after 60 minutes, to seal victory.
NEWBRIDGE COLLEGE: G Burns, A Dunne, D Hennebry, E Howlin, R O'Connor, C Browne, (capt), C Maguire, J Treacy, C Thompson, C O'Carroll, J Cantillon, R Mangan, M Duke, B Cella, S Coghlan-Murray. Replacements: M Crowe for Maguire,
SKERRIES CC: M Sherlock, R Newsholme, R Dempsey, C Mulvihill, W Arthur, H Dawson, A Carron, R Byrne, C Tonge, J Sherwin, C O'Brien, M Wheeler, E Linnane, B Murphy (capt), R O'Connor.
Referee: Sean Byrne
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