Under 18.5’s entertain touring side Grootvlei

Cill Dara 18s shine against Southern hemisphere visitors

South African touring side Grootvlei provided the opposition for a number of Cill Dara youth teams on Sunday and 18s had a very entertaining game against the visitors. Cill Dara had a panel of 21 which allowed for constant rotation of players throughout the game. The changes made for a rather disjointed performance from the home side but still managed to run in 5 tries in 39 – 12 victory. First on the score board were the visitors after 4 minutes when a good break saw them score under the posts to go 7 up. Four minutes later the sides were level when Adam Meehan scored the first of his three tries on the day and Ryan Curran converted. Mid way through the half Grootvlei went ahead again with their second try. After 21 minutes Ryan Curran converted a penalty into the wind to put two between the sides and it remained that way until half time.

Half Time: Cill Dara 10 Grootvlei 12

Cill Dara upped the tempo in the second half and set out their stall after 2 minutes when Cian Buckley scored the try of the game with a well worked training ground move - Tadhg Murtagh converted. Six minutes later Tadhg Murtagh added 3 points with a penalty which kicked started a dominant period for the home side and they ran in further tries from Adam Meehan (15th & 22nd minute) and Taran Clifford-Broughal (28th) who ran most of the length of the pitch to score in the corner. Tadhg Murtagh added the extra points for two of them. The score could have been greater but for the referee harshly giving a knock on when Chris Walsh grounded over the line. Overall this was a terrific game and the score did not reflect the contribution of the visitors and they were unlucky on several occasions in the second half not to cross the line.
Next Sunday the lads kick off the qualifier league section of the Leinster Youth league at home against Tullamore. Cill Dara are in Section B with Tullamore, Boyne, Mullingar, Skerries, Enniscorthy/Wexford, Longford and Naas. At the end of the qualifiers the top four teams will go into the Premier Division and the bottom four into Division 1. There are sure to many tough battles between now and Christmas. It looks like the semi-final of the Area League will now take place on 28th October (provisionally).

Full Time: Cill Dara 39 Grootvlei 12

Squad: Adam Meehan, Cian Buckley, Taran Clifford-Broughal, Christopher Walsh, Tadhg Murtagh, Sean Conway, Jack Hannon, Ryan Curran, David Vaughan, Rory Mahon, Matthew Conway, Michael Nash, Robert Miller, Darragh Whelan, Sam Downey, Sean Bowden, Jake Conway, Ross Dooley, Michael John Prendergast, Ben Savage, Reece Delaney.