Old Wesley secured a convincing 22-10 bonus point win over Blackrock College with a robust and physical pack performance in a cold Donnybrook last weekend in the J3 League – Section ‘A’…
One late try by Blackrock was not enough to blemish what was a determined performance from the Wesley men.
Wesley made a promising start with inside centre Brian Doherty fending off a tackle to race towards the line before being chopped down with his offload resulting in a knock on.
Rock fly-half Mark Underwood struck a penalty that was deemed good by the touch judges but was disallowed by the referee, preventing Rock from taking a three point lead.
After some poor territorial kicks by both sides, Wesley left-wing Kyle Petrie twice injected pace into the back-line resulting in a try in the corner off a lovely running line. Ciaran Murphy missed the conversion to leave the score at 5-0.
There was no confusion with the next Rock penalty as Underwood stabbed it through the posts to make it 5-3.
Wesley’s second try was the story of the match as a good line-out was turned into a rolling maul that rolled on and on through the ‘Rock 22 until loose-head prop Matthieu Laporte fell over the line. Murphy missed again with the conversion leaving it 10-3.
Wesley’s front five were the main contributors to the winning of the game with Eric Brown and Shane Davey constantly securing ball in the air and Laporte and his front row colleagues impressing over the ‘Rock pack.
Blackrock surged in the second half with touches from replacement scrum-half Craig Duffy spurring them on to go around the aggressive Wesley defence.
Wesley managed to consistently turn over these Rock attacks until they found themselves pounding their line and eventually replacement number 8 Colin Wallace barrelled over for a try on the short side.
The conversion was missed again with the score 15-3 with 15 minutes to go. Wesley had their fourth try moments later as a Rock counter attack was intercepted with Brain Doherty touching down unchallenged.
Richard Thompson couldn’t miss with the conversion as Wesley sealed the game at 22-3.
A late consolation try was scored by the impressive Rock fly-half Underwood with Wesley falling off tackles at the end of the match. Underwood converted his own try as the final whistle blew.
Old Wesley: Ronan Sheridan; Luke Begley, Cian Murphy, Brian Doherty, Kyle Petrie; Richard Thompson, Jamie McConnell, Matthieu Laporte, David Swaine; Gary Hamilton, Eric Brown, Shane Davey, Crawford Kidd, Craig Petrie, Neil Stanley
Subs: Sean O’Neill, Colin Wallace, Adam Cosgrave, Peter Wallace, Trevor Farrar
Blackrock College R.F.C: Cian McGinley; Alan O’Mahony, John O’Mahony, Barry Neary, Gerry Liston; Mark Underwood, Mark Buckley, Gavin Hegarty, Stephen Lambe; Keith Lumsden, David Boland, Paddy Lee, James Fitzpatrick, Chris Godwin, Karl O’Riordan
Subs: Stewart Creavin, Greg Creavin, Paul Roddy, Craig Duffy, Ross McCormack
Referee: James Fegan
