Tallaght 14
Try: Luke Maher
Penalties: Rob Hudson 2, Luke Maher 

BGF Ravens 15

John Madden Cup

Pitch 100, Firhouse

13/09/2025

The Tallaght men’s team played their first competitive game of the season taking on the BGF Ravens in the John Madden Cup on Pitch 100 in Firhouse. 

Tallaght started the game well and were dominant for the first twenty minutes. They created some decent attacking chances but they weren’t quite in sync out wide to capitalise. Eventually they chose to take their points and Rob Hudson kicked a penalty to take a 3-0 lead. Once the Ravens got some possession, they were far more efficient. Their out-half John McNamara showed great skill to chip ahead and regather his kick to score a fine try to make it 5-3 to the Ravens. 

Tallaght hit back with another Hudson penalty to reclaim the lead at 6-5. But once again, they were sloppy at the restart and the Ravens regathered possession and scored a converted try to take a 12-6 lead at half-time. 

Tallaght started the second half well but again, they couldn’t quite take their chances. But they were boosted by a yellow card for the Ravens for a high tackle. They took advantage when Luke Maher burst through a tackle and broke out of his twenty two. He offloaded to Nick McGuinness who returned the ball to Maher. Maher then found full back Evan Tyrrell who kept the move going before giving the final pass to Maher to finish off a quite superb length of the field try. The conversion was missed but Tallaght were only a point down at 12-11. 

Then Maher kicked a penalty to give Tallaght the lead at 14-12. But the Ravens won a penalty themselves to seal a 15-14 win. 

Tallaght head coach Adam Nolan was proud of his players’ efforts while lamenting some missed chances. “We were probably guilty of showing the Ravens too much respect at the beginning of the match. But once we started competing with them physically, we showed we could hurt them. We scored a brilliant try and could have had a few others, but ultimately there was only a point in it. It was great to see young players like Daragh O’Donoghue, Evan Tyrrell, Eoin van der Krogt and Jonah Hurley make their competitive debuts today. They all acquitted themselves well but Jonah was the man of the match for his incredible workrate in attack and especially defence. We’re now focusing on our first league game of the season next week against Athy.”