There has rarely been a more dramatic day in the Energia All-Ireland League playoffs than on Saturday, as was typified by Nenagh Ormond becoming the first Tipperary club to win promotion to Division 1A status and Trinity retaining their 1B status with dramatic, last-ditch two score comebacks.
Nenagh Ormond were trailing 33-22 to a talented UCC side, from whom Seán Odogbo was among the try scorers, entering the last five minute when a penalty off a collapsed lineout drive gave them a lineout. Off the restart, a break by backrower John Healy, brother of ex-Munster outhalf Ben and who had scored one of the home side’s earlier tries, led to a match-winning try by fullback Josh Rowland, his second try of the match.
It was a case of devastation for another Tipperary side as Cashel, where the rock had been lit up in red the night before, lost out to Trinity at College Park in their Division 1B/2A promotion/relegation playoff.
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Trinity were looking doomed to a second successive relegation when they trailed 16-8 inside the last 10 minutes. The students’ fullback Matty Lynch, who had shifted to outhalf, then took control of the game, first by scoring his own try, converting it and making the break that led to the last penalty which he landed from a difficult angle 40 metres out.
“Club rugby at its best,” was the verdict of long-serving Trinity director of rugby Tony Smeeth. “And I would have said that had we lost. It was like a Colours match, only with venom. To be honest, I thought we were gone.”
Meanwhile, Dungannon, Skerries and Thomond, ending their six-year absence from the AIL, also earned hard-fought playoff final wins.
AIL playoff promotion final results
Division 1A: Nenagh Ormond 36 UCC 33; Division 1B: Dublin University 18 Cashel RFC 16; Division 2A: Navan 23 Dungannon 28; Division 2B: Skerries 32 Midleton 26; Division 2C: Omagh Academicals 15 Thomond 23.
