Nenagh Ormond under 18.5s played Garryowen on Saturday last in the latest round of Pan Munster in phase 1. On arrival to the pitch, conditions were not ideal, there was a very strong wind blowing with constant rain on top of that. Lineouts were a lottery and handling conditions were very difficult. Nenagh kicked the game off with the wind in their back and found themselves in the opposition 22 early on. We had the defence under pressure, and we did get over the try line but unfortunately, it was held up. Soon after we were awarded a penalty 10 yards out but just couldn’t turn the pressure into points. The ball was like a bar of soap and the strong wind made it very difficult to put phases together. Garryowen seemed to gain confidence from keeping the scoreline 0-0 after 20 mins and scored a try just close to the 30 minute mark. Conversion was wide of the posts. Half time whistle was blown with Nenagh having it all to do against the wind and a deficit of 5 points. Playing into the wind in the second half Nenagh seemed to get a handle on conditions a bit better and there were notable carries from Jack Tierney, Aidan Steed, Anluan White, Alex Monko and Dara Corish to get well over the gainline. We finally broke the deadlock 10 mins into second half, Jack Tierney made big yards leaving multiple tacklers behind him. After a couple of phases the ball made its way to Luke Slattery who popped to Oisin Ryan who crashed over in front of the posts. The strong gust of wind pulled the conversion against the posts. That made it 5 all with all to play for. Nenagh kept the momentum going from that try and scored again soon after. We attacked wide on the left with Jack Tierney, Oisin Ryan then carried in midfield and from the ruck Cody O Connor made a half break and was hauled down. Shaun Murphy was fed from the ruck and got us within 5 metres. It looked like we were going to move the ball open but Hugo Healy and Charlie Talbot went down the blind, with Hugo receiving the ball, dimming and crashing over in the corner. The very difficult conversion didn’t reach the posts, due to the extremely strong wind. Garryowen came back at us and our defence stood firm, with some really dominant tackles from Aidan Steed, Dara Corish and Alex Monko. With 3 mins to go Nenagh were attacking the opposition ten metre line on the wing and the Nenagh player was ajudged to have put a foot in touch even though he was a good 5 yards inside the field of play. The referee then awarded a penalty to Garryowen and they kicked for the corner, our defence held firm, halting multiple phases, with a try saving tackle from Shaun Murphy and eventually we turned the ball over and kicked the ball ahead. The ball had reached the 10 metre line when a Garryowen player went down with a cramp and play was called to a halt. The game was restarted with a scrum on our 22 to Garryowen and after 6/7 phases they scored to leave it 10/10 with a conversion to kick and indeed their kicker nailed it in very difficult conditions. Ref blew the final whistle, final score 12-10 to Garryowen. In this game we started very slowly but showed huge character in second half to get ahead in extremely challenging conditions. The game was won at the death with an excellent kick. Training continues Tuesday and Thursday. No game next weekend