Ratoath v Clontarf

Congratulations to the fifteen boys that made today's game... The pain of the defeat will stay with us for a few weeks longer because on the manner of it.... Unfortunately there was no IRFU ref present for this game and one has to rely on an away coach to do his best to referee... And that was where the problem began and ended for us. And as a coach, it can be very hard to take.
As for the rugby played, we didn't do ourselves any favours in the first half. Slow to break downs,lack of support play, lazy out stretched arms and missed tackles made it a lot easier for Clontarf to rack up their scores. If it wasn't for the old guard like,Calum, Adam,Evun and Jack the score might have been higher. These boys seemed to be more tuned in than their teammates as play went on through the first half.... The others just seemed to be caught cold and ridged... The days of holding out your arms and hope that the attacker will glady run into them are a thing of the past lads. You have to introduce your shoulder to their hip and let the opposition know you mean business...So between the referee and slow starters,we found ourselves down by five tries at halftime.

However, this is better team than the score suggests and they proved it holding Clontarf to just one try in the second half. Even with most of the decisions being given to the home side... And that's because our boys realised that they hadn't performed to their best of their ability... Matthew Maguire was unrecognisable in the second half in his defensive tackles.... Receiving a couple of knocks to his head for his troubles.... Ray Taylor made some lovely line breaks in attack,with some great support play from Cian. But there wasn't enough of that for us to gain any momentum to turn it into points. Cian, you showed great strength in defence too,in the way you tried to hold up a tackle and turn the ball over. Fair play to you. Ray some of your smoother tackles were brave and sore by the looks of things. Jack you ran your line very well but through no fault of your own,some of the ball you were getting was poor and had you on the back foot,which is not the best way to get your line running.... You took on some nice lines of attack yourself and broke the gain line more than once. Today's game certainly wasn't a great one for our wingers. With very little ball to run with, most of the game was a defensive one for ye.... One to forget really.
Tadgh, you had a solid second half and you should be proud of how you handled yourself out there today. You took some hard knocks from some of the Clontarf players but you also gave some lovely hits yourself.... You really are developing into a lovely forward Tadgh and with a bit more self belief,we'll get you over that try line that you richly deserve.
Conor,Tim and Mattieu this one was one of your quieter games lads.... Everybody has them now and again,and it was your turn today.... Something to keep in mind for our game next weekend. It's because for the last so many matches that you three have been up there and setting your own standards so high that it was obvious today that it was missing. And days like these will always happen every now and again. In saying that Conor,your second half performance was much better than the first.
This is a team sport,and as I've said to all of ye,we win and loose as a team.... Today,we loose as a "Team"....
Thanks a million to the parents who travelled and supported the boys today..... Men of the match for today certainly goes to,our captain calum Clinton,Adam Byrne,Evun Grant and Jack Fennessy.

Training on Wednesday and Friday evening lads where we will lick our wounds and get ready for our home game against Terenure.....