And so rugby fans, on the day following a disappointing Ireland exit from a hard fought qtr final against New Zealand it was up to the U20s teams from Naas and Seapoint RC to lift the crowds out of the doldrums and put on a display of Irish Domestic Rugby future. This was the opening round of the JP Flanagan Prem 3 league. With 9 teams competing in this season’s competition with some mouth-watering ties lined up – nothing can be taken for granted in what promises to be a closely contested league.
It was clear from the start that Naas had brought a very strong pack with them and was because of this and pressure at scrum time they were awarded a penalty at the 10 min mark to open the scoring.
Seapoint responded almost immediately with a superbly executed cross field kick from the boot of Sam O’Donovan to the hands of Shane Gevero to sprint over and with the conversion brought the score to 7 – 3 to the home side.
The game did not let up for a second and again with forwards pressure from Naas they got in under the posts to go back in front 10 – 7
Just at the half hour mark there was some controversy when following a high tackle from a Seapoint player, the official upped it to a yellow card and then award a penalty try bringing the visitors tally to 17 to 7 and now vs a 14-man Seapoint side.
Digging deep to cover the gaps Seapoint put on an excellent push and were rewarded for their efforts with a try and conversion with the score now at Seapoint 14 to Naas 17 nothing in it between these teams going into half time.
The Second half got underway with Seapoint at 14 men, and it was not long before Naas got in under the posts again with forwards pressure to commence a sustained purple patch of scores. 3 more tries were to follow with the scoreboard now showing 34 to 14 to Naas a huge gap to try and close.
There would be some further controversy when a Naas deliberate knock on during a Seapoint attack on the Naas 5 metre line would result in the Naas player being dispatched to the bin however on this occasion no Penalty try awarded for what would have surely been a try with no defence left to beat.
Leaving that behind Seapoint continued to fight back and with breaks from Carl Byrne breaking lines and the Andy O’Donovan with a route one super run to offload to Captain Charlie McLoughlin to pull a score back to get to 21 – 34, it wasn’t to be Seapoint’s day and with a final flurry a deserved Naas winning side went over at the death to make it 21 – 41.
Seapoint will rue some missed chances but will learn a lot from this game as this young side continues to improve.
Next week it’s off to Galway for first away trip of the league to play Galwegians which should be another cracker of a game.
