Munster U16 Cup Round 3: 

Nenagh 15  Newcastle West 12

Nenagh strike late to edge out Newcastle West. 

Nenagh kept their hopes of qualifying for the knockout stages of the U16 Munster Cup alive by edging a tense battle with their old rivals Newcastle West in Lisatunny. The visitors struck the first blow early in the game with a strike play off a scrum just inside the Nenagh half. The subsequent conversion was missed.  The first half was evenly contested and while Nenagh worked hard to try and gain a foothold they were undone by handling errors and turnovers at the breakdown. When they did manage to put some phases together, they created several try scoring opportunities.  Some clever crossfield kicks almost resulted in scores but the visitors scrambled to keep Nenagh out. Following some great carries from the forwards, James Heffernan made a strong run to the 5 metre line. The ball was recycled and some great handling created another scoring opportunity but the chance was missed and Newcastle turned the ball over on their own line and relieved the pressure leaving the half time score 5-0 in their favour.

In the second half Nenagh committed more resources to the breakdown and improved their continuity allowing them to put the Newcastle defense under sustained pressure. The forwards carried hard into the visitors half and the ball was moved out to Oscar Griffin who broke the first line of defense and stormed over in the corner to tie the game at 5 all. From the restart the visitors seized the initiative when Nenagh failed to gather and were penalised. Newcastle kicked to the corner, won the lineout and moved the ball into midfield where their forwards powered over under the posts to move into a 12-5 lead. The Nenagh respose was impressive. They stayed calm and stuck to the gameplan, kicked for terrority, and continued to create opportunities. The ball was moved out to the left wing to Aaron Walsh who still had plenty of work to do but he showed great speed to outpace the defence and score in the corner to reduce the deficit to 12-10. Then the visitors came again and threathened to close out the game but some heroic defending from Nenagh won the penalty.  Hugo Healy found a great touch on the half way line. Dara Meehan claimed the lineout, and Nenagh moved the ball up to the Newcastle 22 but the referee adjudged the ball was held up in a maul and the visitors were awarded the scrum. With time nearly up heads could have dropped but in fairness to Nenagh they never panicked. From the Newcastle scrum, Seanie Quinlan drove their No 9 back into their 22 and Newcastle were penalised at the ruck. Nenagh tapped and went quickly, kept their discipline and recycled for several phases allowing Dara Gaynor to crash over from close range to score the match winning try in the last play of the game leaving the final score at 15 – 12 to Nenagh. We play away to the same opposition next Sunday in the next round of the U16 Cup.