Tallaght R.F.C 10
Try: Louise Leonard, Aisling Pyke
Swords 10
Women’s Leinster Division 5
Tymon Park
29/01/2023
The Tallaght women’s team resumed their Division 5 campaign against third placed Swords.
Tallaght started well and were camped in the Swords twenty two for the first fifteen minutes. After wasting a couple of good chances, smart passing found number eight Louise Leonard who scored a try out wide to give Tallaght a 5-0 lead.
Swords kicked very little ball and they looked to play the ball through phases out of their own half. It was a risky strategy and they lost a lot of ball initially but it started to pay off as they made ground through the Tallaght defence. The Swords inside centre, their best player, busted through the middle and broke a tackle and ran away to score a fine try. She also converted her own try to make it 7-5 to Swords at half-time.
In the second half Tallaght suffered some injury blows losing skipper Eileen Shanahan, Sorcha Burns and Ellen Crotty to knocks. Swords conceded a lot of penalties in their own half and their inside centre was shown a yellow card. With a penalty under the posts Tallaght could have taken the points to regain the lead, but they decided to go for a try. But this backfired when Tallaght kept trying to bulldoze their way over the line and ignored their backs who were totally unmarked out wide. Eventually Tallaght lost the ball and Swords escaped with their lead intact.
The inside centre returned from the yellow card and kicked a penalty that just crept over the crossbar to make it 10-5 to Swords with only ten minutes left. Tallaght’s cause wasn’t helped when first Aisling Pyke and then Louise Leonard were shown yellow cards. All hope seemed lost but then replacement Emma Irvin made a huge carry skittling several defenders. It earned Tallaght a penalty but in the same move out-half Grainne Flood took a nasty knock to the throat. She required five minutes of treatment before she could be removed from the pitch.
When the game restarted the ball was moved to Aisling Pyke, who showed her strength to burst through for a try to make it 10-10. With regular kicker Flood off the field, Pyke took on the responsibility of the conversion but didn’t connect cleanly with the ball and the match finished a draw. In truth it was probably a fair result. The two points for the draw puts Tallaght six points ahead of Ashbourne with two games left to play, but Ashbourne have a game in hand.
Tallaght head coach Hayley White was proud of the way her team got something from the match at the death. “We certainly didn’t play our best rugby today and were guilty of trying to force things instead of playing to our gameplan. Credit to Swords too though, their defence was excellent and they made the best of their opportunities. We weren’t helped by losing some important players to knocks, but we trust the quality we have on our bench. But we showed our character to keep going and get an equalising try with the last play of the game. It means our fate is still in our own hands and if we beat Ashbourne away in two weeks time, then we’re champions. We know we’ll need to play a lot better to win in two weeks though so our focus for the next fortnight will be addressing the issues in our performance and getting back on track.”
Player of the match: Aisling Pyke
Tallaght RFC
- Martina Fitzpatrick
- Orlaith Plunkett
- Lisa Connors
- Kim Littlefield
- Lisa O’Connell
- Aimee Travers
- Samantha Ledden
- Louise Leonard
- Eileen Shanahan (Captain)
- Grainne Flood
- Ellen Crotty
- Aisling Pyke
- Nicole Fanning
- Jensen Byrne
- Sorcha Burns
- Laura Dalton
- Emma Irvin
- Vicky Cobbe
- Ciara McLoughlin
- Clodagh Cullagh
- Alison Lyons
- Nikita Murray
- Doireann O’Byrne
Photos Mark Luttrell
