AN excellent second-half performance gave Skerries a comfortable win against Dublin University in this entertaining Leinster Senior Cup first round match at Holmpatrick yesterday.
The first half, however, was dominated by Trinity who opened the scoring in the sixth minute with a controversial try by centre Colm Murphy. Fullback Brian Quinn went through the Skerries defence, and he sent the Ulster interprovincial winger Jan Cunningham galloping towards the try-line. But an excellent covering tackle by the Skerries defence saw Cunningham grounded just five yards short of the line. As he fell the ball squirmed out of his grasp and appeared to roll forward. The referee was unsighted and Murphy swooped to gather the ball and crash over for a try under the post. Out-half Colm Morgan converted and then added two penalties in the 25th and 28th minutes to put Trinity 13-0 ahead.
The turning point of the match came in the 34th minute. Trinity enjoying complete control of the match were awarded a penalty virtually under the Skerries post and an easy three points beckoned. Inexplicably, however, they elected to run the ball and it was cleared by Skerries who maintained possession from a series of penalties and on the stroke of half-time, a forward drive led to the ball being moved wide to right winger Jacob Mwafilirwa, who dived over to score.
Out-half Jimmy Dempsey missed the conversion to leave the score 13-5 at the break.
Almost from the kick off in the second half Dempsey went on a run and chipped through but narrowly missed the race for the touchdown as the ball ran over the dead-ball line.
Dempsey kicked an excellent penalty near the half-way line in the 74 minute.
Skerries wrapped up the match in the last minute with a beautifully worked push-over try, Carron diving on the ball to get the touch-down to leave the final score 30-13 deservedly in favour of Skerries.
:quality(70)/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/irishtimes/YVIRIOZQ35EWRPZXR27KGMO6YU.png)