COURTNEY WINS GAME IN LAST PLAY!

Trinity 32pts, Young Munster 27pts – October 8th 2016 

Trinity hosted the legendary Young Munster Rugby Club on Saturday, in what turned out to be a stirring game of Rugby in perfect conditions in College park.

Trinity started the game taking their illustrious opponents through multiple phases, the visitors defended well but gave away a few penalties under the fire of the home attack.

Trinity was first on the scoreboard, when they counter attacked from deep with wing Bryan Mollen, who broke the first line of defence, before feeding his wing partner Colm Hogan who put centre Kyle Dixon away with a sumptuous off load, Dixon raced clear before feeding his scrum half Dan Joyce who took the ball deep into the visitors 22, from the recycle out half Jack McDermott fed second row Pierce Dargan on the charge to score out wide for a great team try.

Young Munster came more into the game, and they kicked a penalty followed by a well-taken try when they took advantage of numbers off a scrum.

The game ebbed and flowed through out with both teams playing with plenty of attacking intent. Trinity’s out half Jack McDermott kicked a penalty to close the gap right on half time. 10-8 to Young Munster.

In the second half Trinity continued to attack, and from a line out they were slightly fortunate as a loose ball came back on their side and scrum half Dan Joyce cleaned up and fed wing Colm Hogan who again broke the line. The ball went through the hands of the backs who all did well to move the ball under considerable pressure, Full back Jack Kelly was put away out wide and took the ball just short of the line, after several phases on the visitors line the ball was moved wide to hooker Liam Cronin who crashed over out wide.

This was followed by another score for the students when Colm Hogan stepped in front of a loopy pass and ran it in from 80 Metres. At 22-10 Trinity looked comfortable with 20 minutes to go, but they visibly relaxed and the Munstermen came back with some ferocious attacks of their own, they scored two tries after laying siege to the hosts line. 24-22 up in the dying minutes the game changed scores four times in the last ten minutes.

Trinity attacked hard going through endless phases, Munsters infringed and Jack McDermott slotted the kick. Young Munster came back hard and managed to gain a scrum on the Trinity line, they gained a dubious looking penalty, when Trinity looked to have the nudge on. The Limerick men took the kick option and they coolly slotted the points to take what looked like a winning penalty 27-25.

Trinity came straight back and threw everything at the Young Munster defence, they looked to have worked an overlap only for Young Munster to intercept themselves, the students chased back and gained a scrum. The Dublin based team came under a bit of pressure at scrum time, but they got the ball away with a perfect pass from scrum half Rowan Osborne who put centre Micheal Courtney away, The former CBC Monkstown outside centre split the Munster A pairing of Dan Goggins and Cian Bohane, and just ran away from the defence to score a sensational last minute try. Much to the delight of his hotly pursuing team mates and home crowd.

This was a very gutsy win by the students, against top quality opposition full of contracted professionals from Munster. They currently stand second in All Ireland League 1A after four games! But one loss could put them in the bottom three such is the equality in the league.

Trinity has three weeks off from league action. They will send a squad to Cambridge University next Monday evening 7.30pm KO in Grange Road when they face the iconic Blues squad on their home ground.

15 Jack Kelly, 14 Bryan Mollen, 13 Michael Courtney, 12 Kyle Dixon, 11 Colm Hogan (James O’Donovan 68), 10 Jack McDermott, 9 Dan Joyce (Rowan Osborne 65), 1 Eric O’Sullivan, 2 Liam Cronin (Jack Boland 65), 3 Andy Keating (Fintan Murphy 70), 4 Jack Burke, 5 Pierce Dargan, 6 Sam Pim, 7 Adrien Chabonnier (Dermot O’Flynn 45), 8 Tom Ryan 

Other news: 

On Sunday a strong Trinity J1s played in Templeville road to play St Marys, The Senior 2nds played some superb rugby to win out 53-21.

Trinity U20s hosted Navan U20s to decide who would win Section A of the qualifying series, with both teams already qualified for the Super 8. The U20s were given a tough challenge in College Park, before running out convincing 41-23 scoring 6-2 on tries.