Simon Collie steps in to score
Blackrock R.F.C. 39
Tallaght R.F.C. 39
Tries: Simon Collie, David Clarke, Adam Nolan 2, Frank Doyle, Ciaran Rudd
Con: Morgan Farrell 3
Pen: Morgan Farrell
Metro League Division 7
Stradbrook Road
25/3/2017
Ken McGovern
Tallaght made a remarkable comeback to snatch a draw away to Blackrock after trailing by seventeen points with less than ten minutes remaining. The result, coupled with UCD’s defeat on Friday night, ensures Tallaght and DLSP will contest the play-off final for the Metro Division 7 championship. On a beautifully sunny spring day that was made for running rugby, Blackrock made the better start of things scoring a converted try to take a 7-0 lead. Tallaght hit back when full back Simon Collie received the ball just instead the Blackrock twenty-two line and showed great footwork to beat two defenders and score a try in the corner. Morgan Farrell kicked an excellent conversion and tacked on a penalty to give Tallaght a 10-7 lead. However Blackrock’s fast-paced offloading game was causing Tallaght constant problems and they dominated the rest of the half. They first kicked a penalty to draw level and then scored an unconverted try to lead 15-10 at halftime.
Karl “Moonbeam” Segrave
Blackrock kept up the pressure in the second half scoring a converted try to increase their lead to 22-10. Tallaght hit back again when a strong run and offload from hooker Ken McGovern set up David Clarke for a try, which Farrell converted to bring it back to 22-17. Blackrock scored another converted try to increase their lead but Adam Nolan hit back from Tallaght again to leave make the score 29-22 to Blackrock. Then Blackrock appeared to make the game safe with two more unconverted tries to take a seventeen point lead at 39-22 with eight minutes left. Blackrock then had a player sent to the sin-bin for a high tackle and Tallaght took advantage when replacement flanker Frank Doyle went over for a try to make it 39-27. Time was running out but Tallaght were running everything at an increasingly panicky Blackrock and Ciaran Rudd went over for another excellent try for Tallaght which made it 39-32. Tallaght came again, pummelling the Blackrock line until Stephen Kelly put Adam Nolan over for his second try of the match. Morgan Farrell kept his cool to convert the try to cap a man of the match performance and earn Tallaght a draw that felt like a win in the circumstances.
Gary Doyle
Director of rugby Luke Tyrrell was delighted with the character his team showed in fighting back for the draw. “We were far from perfect today and perhaps we under-estimated what was a very useful Blackrock side, but we showed incredible heart to come back from seventeen points down to earn a draw. It was a fantastic game of club rugby with the teams scoring six tries a piece and both sides really went out to play. We’ll learn from today and will look to improve next week in our final regular league game against Seapoint. We’ve a final against DLSP coming up and we know we’ll need to improve on today’s performance to beat them”.
Man of the match: Morgan Farrell
Tallaght RFC
15. Simon Collie
14. Karl Segrave
13. Ciaran Rudd
12. David Clarke
11. Gary Doyle
10. Morgan Farrell
9. Andew Rudd
8. Adam Nolan
7. Jack Russell
6. Mark Keogh
5. Paul Cunningham (Captain)
4. Joe Ivers
3. Andrew Caswell
2. Ken McGovern
1. Sean Judd
Replacements:
16. Alan Sower
17. Aaron Shanahan
18. Stephen Kelly
19. Tony McManus
20. Frank Doyle
21. Alan Bernes
22. Gavin McKeon
Report: Jim O’Connor
Photos: Anne Kavanagh
Dave Clarke
Andrew Rudd