Under 18.5’s beat Naas 13 - 9

Cill Dara kick off season with good win against Naas

Cill Dara 18s kicked off their season with a win in a tough battle against Naas. The weather was not conducive to open running rugby and the misty rain ensured a lot of handling errors and a lot of stop-starts. Cill Dara were the better team however and most of the last 20 minutes of the half was played in the Naas territory. It took until the 34th minute before Ryan Curran opened the scoring with a penalty, making amends for an earlier miss. Just before the half time whistle Padraig Howard was harshly adjudged to have knocked on while grounding the ball from a few meters out.
Half Time: Cill Dara 3 Naas 0
The second half has a bit more open and 5 minutes into the half a good blind side move from a scrum 22 metres out resulted in the only try of the game when Taran Clifford-Broughal finished off the move in the corner. An excellent conversion from Ryan Curran made it a 7 point game. Naas came right back at Cill Dara and 3 minutes later some sloppy defending from Cill Dara resulted in a penalty which the Naas out-half converted. Eight minutes later Cill Dara’s lead was reduced to the minimum when the referee adjudicated “hands-in –a ruck” and Naas converted the penalty. That seemed to spur Cill Dara into action and most of the remainder of the game was played in the Naas half. Conor Smyth and Tadhg Murtagh were both unlucky when denied close in and despite continuous pressure they couldn’t cross the line. In the end Ryan Curran made it safe with the last kick of the game with a penalty 15 meters out.
Next up is the second game in the area league against Portarlington away. A win will secure top spot in their section and a semi-final against the second place team in section A.
Full Time: Cill Dara 13 Naas 9
Team: Cian Buckley, Christopher Walsh, Adam Meehan, Tadhg Murtagh, Eoin O’Loughlin ,Ryan Curran (Penx2, Conv), David Vaughan, Sam Downey, Padraig Howard, Darragh Whelan, Jake Conway, Michael John Prendergast, Ross Dooley, Reece Delaney, Conor Smyth. Replacements: Rory Mahon, Sean Bowden, Matthew Conway, Cody O’Reilly, Daniel Giltrap, Sean Conway, Taran Clifford-Broughal (Try).