TRINITY GO DOWN IN HIGHFIELD
26/01/2008

Highfield 36pts Trinity 19pts

U20s DEFEAT UCD ….AGAIN!!

For anybody reading the score-line, they will think that the students were easily beaten. This could not be farther from the truth!! The game was between two teams who had a chance to be a major player in the promotion race. Highfield narrowly lost the Munster cup final to Shannon two weeks ago, and are in a good run of form. They play a very physical ‘route one’ type of game. The students stepped up physically and matched their bigger and older opponents.

In the first half Highfield had the advantage of a very strong diagonal wind into the Trinity left hand corner. They were boisterously cheered on by their large crowd. The home forwards drove, smashed and bashed their way off the rucks and mauls. They were aided by a very weak referee who pretty much let them do as they pleased in the close exchanges. Trinity faced this onslaught with great body positions and double tackling on the fringes, and it became apparent that Highfield were struggling to make any headway. Their former Ireland and Munster scrum half Brian O’Meara ran proceedings for the home team, and he also did his best impersonation of former All Black captain Sean Fitzpatrick as he practically refereed the game as well!!! He kicked two from four penalties in the first half.

The score was 6-0 on forty minutes when Trinity lost their own line out, the Home team pounced on the loose ball to score by the posts. 13-0 at Half time.

Early in the second half into the wind the Highfield forwards controlled the ball. O’Meara kicked 3 points after he appealed for and gained another penalty. They then scored a second try after another turnover by Trinity. At 23-0 down things looked bleak for the students. Incredibly the whole atmosphere changed when out half Johnny Watt saw a gap in the defence from deep and broke free up the middle of the field. The Trinity backs simply sliced through the home defence. The ball was moved to Full back Paul Gillespie who ran a switch with wing Shane Hanratty who scored under the posts.

The home crowd really fell silent when off the restart Trinity immediately broke out again with forwards and backs handling superbly with Hanratty scoring again by the posts.

Minutes later Johnny Watt was at it again when he sliced through two forwards in the defence on the halfway line. He incredibly found another gear and finished off the run himself for a superb individual try. At 23-19 Highfield were there for the taking. Unfortunately Trinity could not take advantage as the referee seemed to find lots of reasons to penalise them out of the game. Trinity did not get a penalty kick at goal in the entire game. Nor did they get awarded a penalty in the second half!!! In a highly competitive game this is unusual. O’Meara kicked five penalties from eight attempts. Highfield finished the game with another try when Trinity were down to fourteen men as they had a player in the sin-bin.

This was a sad loss for the students who really stepped up physically to the task. They did manage to score probably the best three tries of the season in a superb display of running rugby. They are not totally out of the running, although results have to go their way. They cannot lose again and have to score many bonus points…

This week they have a week off before hosting Malone in College Park on the 9th February.

15 Paul Gillespie, 14 Shane Hanratty (Brian Barnard 75), 13 Volney Rouse, 12 Conor Donohue, 11 Killian Stafford, 10 Johnny Watt, 9 Joey Burns, 1 Tristan Goodbody, 2 Ben Cunningham, 3 James Gethings, 4 John Byrne, 5 Scott LaValla (Ciaran Condron 20), 6 Max Cantrell, 7 Shane Young, Brian Coyle

Trinity U20s

…… played their third game of the season against Belfield rivals UCD under the new lights at the refurbished Belfield bowl. This was the first game played under the lights in the new all purpose stadium. This game was also the second leg of the Maher Cup played for between the two universities. UCD came out fired up and took the game to Trinity. They kicked two penalties to deservedly take the lead. Trinity came back when on there first visit to the UCD 22M they scored a well executed move off a scrum.

The score stayed this way with UCD dominating territory with the wind. Trinity’s fringe defence was excellent throughout, keeping the home team out.

In the second half Trinity dominated territory but struggled to get any rhythm to their game. It was their first league game since December 9th and they did not seem to keep the ball in a very stop start performance. The forwards eventually took over the game and drove over for a deserved try against the massive UCD pack.

The game finished up with Trinity on attack and were unlucky not to score again when Full back Chris Jebb could not ground the bouncing ball in goal. Jebb did however kick a cheeky drop goal to put his team further in front and win out 15-9.

The U20s now play a ‘winner takes all’ league game against Blackrock at Blackrock College School under lights at 5.30pm on Friday. The two teams are out in front with Blackrock on top but Trinity have two games in hand.

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