Clongowes hold out

Clongowes Wood - 15 King's Hospital Clongowes - 9: Wood were forced to fight all the way in the face of very stiff resistance before claiming a Leinster Schools Senior Cup quarter-final place. The Co Kildare school came through thanks to their ability to conjure up tries and some excellent defending by their backs.

King's Hospital made most of the running in the opening period but promising early runs by Harry Murphy and Ciarán Donaghy were repelled by the Clongowes defence.

Clongowes's centre Kevin McKeown came close to crossing the King's Hospital line at the end of a counter attack but the Dublin side opened the scoring when Luke Feighery converted a penalty some 30 metres from the target in the 23rd minute.

Clongowes opened their account with a try by Eamon Mahoney five minutes later. Prop Ben Barclay and McKeown were involved in the build-up and Mahoney got his hand to the ball first beneath a pile of bodies after it went over the line.

King's Hospital began the second half trailing by 5-3 but they had reason to be grateful for Feighery's accurate kicking when he restored their lead five minutes after the restart with another penalty.

They were on the back foot soon afterwards, however, when Barclay scored a pushover try after a move initiated by Kevin Mahony.

Late in the game McKeown touched down for a fine individual try after a run up the left wing.

Feighery converted a third penalty before the end but Clongowes held out for a fully merited win.

CLONGOWES WOOD: D Kearney; K Mahony, K McKeown, T Fletcher, A Dillon; J Nagle, C McGann; C Spelman, J Davison, B Barclay; P Fannon, E Mahoney; J Lynch, B O'Keeffe, A Ray. Replacements: MJ McDonagh for Mahoney, T Connelly for O'Keeffe, M Kavanagh for Dawson.

KING'S HOSPITAL: H Murphy; J Pearson, T Spiers, C Donaghy, C Coyle; L Feighery, S Murphy; J Brady, A Darragh, F Ross; B White, R Evan; R Wallace, J Marron, K Young. Replacements: B Kontour for Spiers, P Davis for Coyle, D Russell for Evan.