Provincial Towns Cup 2nd Round
Athy 7 Roscrea 17
oscrea dominated this match right from the beginning, especially in the scrum, but found it very hard to put away a dogged Athy side who defended very well and competed very well at the breakdown. Roscrea had a huge amount of possession but were slow in moving the ball from the scrum. There was a lot of unforced errors particularly handling mistakes. Maybe the very strong cross field breeze had something to do with it. Still it was an encouraging performance and puts them into the quarter final where they will play away to Edenderry on Sunday March 3rd, with every hope of making it into the Semi-Final.
Athy dropped off and David Carney made a safe catch and Aaron Carroll dispatched the ball to touch. Roscrea had most of the possession but Athy had the first chance to score with a penalty from Matt Bever but the centre put the ball wide from 20 Metres. Good driving by the pack especially from David Carney, Joe Maher and Wes Carter got Roscrea into the Athy 22. A scrum followed, which was won by Roscrea, but the ball was messed up and Athy Managed to clear. Willie Maher made a great burst through the centre and into the Athy 22. An attempted clearance was blocked down by Aaron Carroll who also collected the ball to dive over for the opening score. He also added the two points and despite the Roscrea Scrum giving their Athy counterparts a tough time , it was the home team who managed to get the ball into the Roscrea 22. Roscrea were too slow to clear and Athy got in for a 7 pointer to put the sides level. Roscrea came back straight away. After good work by Wes Carter, Denis Moloney got a fine touch 10 metres from the Athy line. Roscrea had all the possession and all the territory and there was some great driving mauls with Gearoid Doherty, John Maher and Malachy Maher to the fore. A number of 5 metre scrums had Athy just barely hanging in. Roscrea opted for scrum after being awarded a penalty and this time Athy could not stop the Roscrea pack who drove over the line with David Carney getting the Touchdown. Aaron Carroll converted , to give Roscrea a 14 pts. to 7 at half time.
In the 2nd half Daryl Carney got a great touch to put Roscrea on the offensive straight away. They had tons of possession, Willie Maher made a few great bursts up the middle, Paul McNamara made a good run into the 22.
Aaron Carroll missed a simple enough penalty, it was all Roscrea but scores were slow to come and the many Roscrea Supporters were getting anxious especially when Athy, against the run of play managed to block down an attempted clearance inside the 22 but the visitors managed to clear and eventually got the 3 points from an Aaron Carroll penalty, which put the game beyond the reach of Athy. Paul Mc Namara did actually get a try when he followed up a kick ahead to dive in and touch the ball down but for some reason the ref did not allow it.
Roscrea are playing well but they will have to make better use of possession and they must protect the ball better at the breakdown, still they have a good chance of defeating Edenderry and making the semi- final but it will be tough as Edenderry as usual will be very competitive.
Team: Daryl Carney, D.Moloney, D . O Rahilly, W.Maher,P.McNamara (capt.) A Carroll, C.Bulfin, J. Smith, John Maher, Joe Maher, G.Doherty, M.Lynch, W.Carter, M.Maher, David Carney.
Replacements: M. Treacy, S.Treacy, G.Stone, K.King, S.Greene, D.Furlong and G. Sutton.
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Weather for Tipperary
Wednesday 22 May 2013
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 5 C to 13 C
Wind Speed: 16 mph
Wind direction: North west
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Temperature: 4 C to 11 C
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