Cistercian College Roscrea produced an excellent performance to stun Belvedere College in the Bank of Ireland Leinster Rugby Boys Schools Senior Cup first round at Energia Park on Monday.
Cistercian Roscrea settled into the game, that was hugely affected by the pouring rain, quicker than their opponents and they opened the scoring in just the third minute when a lineout was secured by Alex Ryan, allowing the pack to set up hooker Ronan O’Neill to claim a try.
They continued to dominate proceedings, and they won a penalty right in front of the posts in the 13th minute, which was easily finished by scrum-half Aaron Moloney to open up an eight-point gap.
The score remained the same until the started of the second half when Cistercian Roscrea grabbed their second try of the afternoon through Jamie Walsh, who drove through the defence after good work by David Barr and Keelan Dunne.
But Belvedere, to their credit, refused to give up and they reduced the deficit in the 49th minute when hooker Alex Liddy grounded the ball at the back of a maul, 13-5.
Jonathan Garrihy reduced the deficit even further soon after when he split the posts with a superbly struck penalty from 43 metres to set up a grandstand finale.
But in the end Cistercian College Roscrea stood tall and Harry Finlay’s late try ensured they secured the victory.
Tries: H O’Neill, J Walsh, H Finlay; Pen: A Moloney.
Try: A Liddy; Pen: J Garrihy.
Ronan Sullivan; Keelan Dunne, Cathal O’Mara, Jack Hayes, Harry Finlay; Killian Hurley, Aaron Moloney; Sean Nolan, Rónán O’Neill, Henry Maher, Alex Ryan, 5 Jamie Walsh, Culan Kehoe, James Miller, Ruben Flynn.
Oscar Doody for O’Neill, Aodhan Carroll for Maher, Sean Stone for Dunne (all 45); William Powell for Nolan (54); Ollie Finn for Kehoe, Michael Griffin for Flynn (both 60).
Fionn McMahon; Isaac Soden, David Barr, Dylan Lord, Rory O’Farrell; Jonathan Garrihy, Charlie Dowse; Ryan Grant, Alex Liddy, Harry Goslin, James Travers, Shaun Mitchell, Ronan McCann, Alexander Clarke, Paul Dunne.
Conor Quinn for Grant, Eugene Isong for Mitchell (both 40); Liam Canny for Dowse, Josh le Bon for McMahon (both 63).
M Enderby, Leinster Branch.
