St. Senans 19 Nenagh Ormond 0

Nenagh U15’s played two games since the Christmas break. The first was a conference semi final away to St Senans last Sunday week. Nenagh were very rusty after the long break and did not perform as well as they had when beating the league leaders in the final game before Christmas. Nenagh started well on a very blustery day and owned the ball for the first 15 minutes of the game. Unfortunately they could not turn the possession into points and St Senans scored wideout on the right on their first visit to the Nenagh 22 to take a 5 0 lead. Despite some pressure by Nenagh coming up to half time we were unable to break through for a score, St Senans defend superbly all day and a few uncharacteristic handling errors and at times a lack of discipline allowed Senans to win penalties to clear their lines. Despite a valiant effort in the second half, we conceded two further converted tries to finish the game on the wrong end of a 19 0 scoreline. The score did not reflect the closeness of the teams and the boys will hopefully learn from the defeat. We were very lucky to to score when John Donovan was clear but the ball squirted from his grasp and this would have brought us back into the game with 15 minutes to go, but it was not to be on the day.

Nenagh Ormond 19 Shannon 12

We played the famous Shannon club on Sunday January 10th at home in Lisatunney in friendly. Both sides played some of the squad members who didn’t get a run the week before and all the players got at least half a game. Shannon began the game well and score after 10 minutes with a close in rumble, the try was converted to give them a 7 0 lead. There was some good play at time by Nenagh, but work will have to be done on some 50-50 off-loads that handed back possession to the opposition. Sean O Callaghan covered well at full back, Shannon having the best of the elements in the first half, it was all to play for at half time. Nenagh then scored an exceptional try, outhalf Joseph Gleeson received a ball a few metres inside his own half, dummied and broke through, sidestepping a covering defender. He produced a beautiful swerve to round the full back, without breaking stride and galloped away to score under the posts. He converted to level the score at 7 all. Some excellent play from the forwards and backs gave Nenagh a foothold in the Shannon 22 and after a number of rumbles, Aaron Collins scored from close in and Joseph converted to give Nenagh the lead. Nenagh then defended well, it was noticeable the improvement in some of the tackling but Shannon had them under pressure in the Nenagh 22. Mikely Doyle held up an attacker and Joseph Gleeson ripped the ball from opponent and broke away from his own 22. He streaked away in front of the stand and had the pace to make it to the corner despite the chasing pack, unfortunately he damaged his hamstring taking the difficult conversion and had to leave the field. Shannon scored a good unconverted try to leave the score 19 to 12 to Nenagh at the end, a very big improvement from the previous week.

Training continues Tuesday and Fridays in Lisatunney.

Squad: Callum Simons, Sam O’Brien, Joe Shanahan, Paddy Griffen, Mateli Halmagne, Sean T Ryan, Jack Butler, Nathan Ryan, Luke Nolan, Ciaran Carey, James Simons, Aaron Collins, Luke Conneally, Tadhg O’Brien, Mikey Doyle, Shane Stanley, Alex Maloney, Sean Moylan, Joseph Gleeson, Alex Morrissey, Joseph Coffey, Adam Hall, Jack O’Flaherty, Sean O’Callaghan , Donagh McSherry, John Donovan.