Trinity were made to work hard for their AIB Cup 1^st Round win on Saturday by Third Division Banbridge at College Park.

 

Trinity seemed to have everything their own way for most of the game, but the Ulster team shocked the hosts with two late tries in the last five minutes.

 

The Students started strongly dominating the set piece and pressurising the visitors into many errors. The students made a few errors of their own when trying to finish off some good team play. They did manage to put some phases of play together despite a whistle happy referee who found a need to penalise the students 9-1 in the penalty count despite the home team owning the ball.

 

Trinity Hooker Mark Murdock scored the first try after several phases of play and sharp handling. Wing Colin Murphy was the next on the board when he finished off some good handling by the backs.

 

A 12-0 half time score, did not seem to fairly reflect the run of play. Trinity came out in the second half and finished off the game early with tries by #8 Scott LaValla and Captain Johnny Iliff.

 

The students then let the visitors into the game with some sloppy defence, and suffered the consequences by conceding two tries.

 

This was a patchy performance by the students who are still struggling with the interpretation at the tackle/ruck time.

 

Trinity host Terenure College next Saturday at College park in their first AIB league game 2.30pm KO. They need to make a drastic improvement if they hope to compete with the high flying visitors who squashed Connemara on Saturday 59-17 and missed nearly all their conversions!! Terenure would be one of the early favourites to win promotion this season after coming down from the top league last season.

 

 

Other news; Trinity 2nds had a busy week when they upset perennial J1 powerhouse Clontarf on Monday evening 30-23, Trinity scored in the last minute too snatch a bonus point win. Unfortunately the 2nds turned in a poor lack lustre performance Sunday in College park when they lost to Old Wesley 24-12. Trinity had a strong team on duty but with many players playing their first game of the year they ran out of gas with 20 minutes to go and were deservedly beaten.

 

Trinity U20s have also been busy the past week. The U20s coaches have looked at over 50 players in the past few days. They lost in triple over time drop goal in the semi final of Newbridge U20s Blitz last Saturday to St Marys. They backed up the following Monday and lost 8-7 to Leinster U19s losing again in the dying minutes of the game. On Friday they visited Seapoint RFC with a large squad of 43 players and won out convincingly over the host team introducing many players to their first taste of Trinity Rugby..