Job Dunne for the Seconds

Athy 2nds (9) vs Clondalkin 2nds (11)

Click on continue reading for full article Clondalkin seconds had to survive a last minute penalty kick to seal an 11-9 victory over Athy in Ballingappa at the weekend. Given the fact that there are almost 20 regular players away at Jonny Hips wedding it was remarkable to see Clondalkin able to field such a strong seconds team with the likes of Maurice Featherstone, Alaric Collier and Finbarr Butler taking to the field.

Recent games against Athy have always put huge demands on players’ physicality and endurance and yesterday’s game was no exception with both teams having to battle not only their opposite number but also temperatures in excess of 30 degrees. Athy shaded the opening encounters and opted to launch the ball skywards each time they got possession in the hope that fullback Gary Donnelly would loose the ball in the sun. This turned out to be a bad tactic as Gary didn’t let a ball drop all day and was able to counter each time making good yards as he went. Clon had struggled in the scrum for the first twenty minutes of the game but began finding their feet as the heat took its toll on the massive Athy front row. The first sign of good first phase ball allowed Alan Hickey to go for a skip one move and with Alaric Collier on the loop it looked certain that Clon would register the first try of the game. However, a despairing foot trip from the Athy centre saved his team the score but cost them a man for ten minutes. Alan Hickey converted the subsequent penalty and Clon went into the break 3-0 up.

An inspired half time team talk from Conor Steed left the Clondalkin players ready to go to war in the second half. Substitute Owen Maguire took the ball from the kick off and burst through four players before the hard hitting Maurice Featherstone registered his tenth penalty of the day by going off his feet at the ruck. Athy slotted the subsequent penalty to make it 3-3. Featherstone registered his twelfth penalty of the game on 62 minutes costing him a yellow card and costing Clon the lead as Athy went 6-3 up. With a tiring pack, captain Kevin Cullen needed some inspiration for his forwards and looked to the bench for that inspiration. However, when he looked over to the bench all he saw was perspiration with Finbarr Butler still sweating from his trojan efforts in the first half and Conor McAuley sweating Saturday nights drink out of him following his 60 minutes in the front row. The only option was to introduce last years captain Derek Murtagh. Murtagh quickly set about getting down to business and set his sights on the big number 8 from the resulting restart. The 8 caught the ball on the 22 line and was driven well back into his 22. His backrow colleagues of Owen Maguire and Paul Hickey caught up with him and forced a knock on from the scrum half who was trying to rush the ball away from the ruck. Maguire picked the ball from the resulting scrum and drove hard towards the line only to be taken out on the 5 metre line. Scrum half Mark Duggan quickly shifted the ball to outhalf Dave Gaule who popped to prop Sean Dunne who with the help of Chris Kelly was able to barrel over the line taking 5 Athy forwards with him. Clon registered another penalty to take the lead to 11-6. Clon were prepared now to settle on the lead and with the reintroduction of dynamic tackler Maurice Featherstone it looked as though this would be easy to do. However, Clon gave away a soft penalty to bring the score to 11-9. A few minutes of resolute defending had lapsed before the ref indicated that the next scrum would be the last play of the game. Stand in scrum half Alaric Collier opted to run the ball rather than kick to touch which resulted in yet another penalty for Athy. What would have been a relatively straightforward kick for the Athy outhalf was made more difficult when Murtagh conceded 10 metres for throwing the ball away thereby making the angle of the kick all but impossible. The resulting kick was caught by Ali who ambled his way to touchline bringing the game to an end.

Captain Kevin Cullen had this to say, “We made things hard for ourselves out there today. Its says something for the discipline of the team that I had to bring Derek ‘Yellow Card’ Murtagh off the bench to reduce the penalty count. We have Longford next week and will need to up improve our discipline considerably if we are going to win that game. That said the boys did well in particular Gary Donnelly and Owen Maguire who helped make sure of this win’. Kevin Cullen has also requested that this website to remind Conor Steed drop the jerseys into the dry cleaners today. Good man Conor.

Added by Murts September 14, 2009 (2:29PM)

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