Nenagh Ormond under 13s played Portlaoise away last Sunday. Weather conditions were perfect and it made for a very entertaining game of rugby. Nenagh started well but every time Nenagh coughed up the ball to the opposition they were punished. Nenagh found themselves 17-0 down with 15 mins on the clock. Nenagh sat back somewhat in defence and allowed their powerful no 8 to do major damage with ball in hand. Nenagh could have been further behind only for an excellent tap tackle from Marcus Finn. While the score line didn’t reflect the flow of the game Nenagh knew they had to turn possession into points. Nenagh found themselves in the opposition 22 after some good carries from Aidan Stead, Anluan White and Alex Monko. With the next carry from Hugo Massy he made good yards and then offloaded to Donagh Carmody who showed great awareness to step the last two defenders and score a try. That score seemed to spur Nenagh on and from the drop off Oisin Hogan made a great break and offloaded to Donagh Carmody which brought play in the Portlaoise 22. A few phases later the ball made its way to Aidan Ryan who spotted a gap and powered his way over the try line. Nenagh took the game to the opposition again from the drop off , the ball was being moved with intent, moving the opposition around the field. Sean Ryan made a good burst in midfield and Marcus Finn moved the ball to the left where Anluan found himself with loads of space. He had two players outside him but instead cut back inside and dotted down. The conversion was kicked to leave the half time score at 17 all. Nenagh kicked off the second half and immediately the intent was there to defend on the front foot. Nenagh did so well in defence, getting off the line and chopping down the attackers. Nenagh scored the next 2 tries with two brilliant solo efforts from Donagh Carmody and Aidan Ryan. For Aidan’s try we had a scrum in midfield with the ball going through the hands to Aidan who took on the defence, found a gap and ran half the field to score. Donagh’s try was somewhat similar as he received the ball on our 10 metre line, saw the space out wide and exploited it with a mazy run to score under the posts. Nenagh were ahead by 14 at that stage and Portlaoise replied with a try of their own. However Nenagh replied with another try. There were good yards made by Luke Stattery and Oisin Hogan and when Nenagh found themselves on the Portlaoise 5m line Cody O Connor fed Anluan White who powered his way over the line. Portloaise replied with 2 tries to bring it back to a 2 point game. Nenagh did score next but it was disallowed by the ref as he adjudged the player to have put a foot in the dead ball area. From the goal line drop out the Nenagh defence worked very hard to put the opposition under pressure and from that a score was earned. From the pressure a Portlaoise back fumbled the ball and Alex Monko had the composure to pounce on the ball and sprint for the line to score in the corner. The conversion was missed to leave Nenagh ahead by 7. However Portloaise scored a try in the last play of the game and missed the conversion which meant Nenagh won by 2 points on a scoreline of 43-41. A very entertaining game overall with some excellent tackling and ball carrying. A speedy recovery to Joe Fahy who went off injured today. We play Young Munster at home next Sunday.