Nenagh Ormond U 18.5’s began their season with a home friendly against Shannon in Lisatunny last Sunday. After some welcome overnight rain, the day was bright and warm, with a nice breeze blowing towards the town end. Nenagh were missing a few players, congratulations to Mason Cawley and Cillian Ryan who were representing Munster in the U18 clubs interprovincial championship. The game was a lively one and very good hit out for the lads despite limited time on the training paddock as a team, mixing last years U16’s and those who remain under age. The first half was a tight affair, Shannon took the lead with a penalty in front of the posts after 20 minutes and the score remained 3-0 to the visitors until just before the break when the best bit of continuity by the home team saw a ball moved to the edge and Conor McGrath beat his man one on one and score a good try in corner, the difficult conversion was wide. There was some good defence by the boys in the first half, they conceded a lot of penalties and hence were under pressure but the structure was good despite the lack of possession. The second half was a topsy turvy affair, Shannon scored a couple of tries to hit the front and Nenagh replied with a couple of their own through Jack Butler and a good try by Tristan Madden, both converted by Darragh Gleeson. Shannon got another try from a cross kick near the end to leave the final score 29-19 to the visitors. Shannon had a massive panel of 37 (including some schools players) to Nenagh’s 20, and the first game tiredness showed near the end as the substitutions took effect. Lots to work on in training, especially the lineouts, which struggled all day. The return of the three missing second rows will assist here, as will further time training together, as well as working on a plan b if plan a is not effective. The scrums were rock solid all day and the first up tackling was good, the new back line will be better for the run out and with a few players to come back there is lots of reason for optimism. A couple of the Shannon tries were from turnovers after we had made good line breaks, so the extra game time in the coming weeks will iron out these issues.

Team : Luke O’Callaghan. Dylan Crowe, Nickie Nie, Dylan Schweitnitz, Mikey Morgan, Sam O’Brien, Ivan Struzia, James Simons, Cathan Gaffney, Darragh Gleeson, Tristan Madden, Tommy Wilkinson, Sean Ryan, Alex Moloney, Dan Keneally, Jack Butler, Oisin Moloney, Robert Powell, Josh Powell.