Rugby: Title favourites Wicklow hold out for win over Longford

Longford RFC . . . 14    Wicklow RFC . . . 20 

Both sides traded attacks and had to defend their own lines in the stages. Longford eventually coughed up a penalty on the 10m line in front of posts, which Wicklow slotted over to take a 3-point lead on 10 mins.

That didn’t deter the home side however, as after some sustained pressure in the opposition half, Longford crashed over under the posts on 19 minutes, with Kieran O’Gorman dotting down and Danny McHugh tapping over the conversion, giving Longford a 07-03 lead.  

Longford were dealt a blow with a yellow card shortly after and it didn’t take long for Wicklow to hit back with a converted try on 23 minutes, bringing the score to 07-10 to Wicklow.  

The visitors struck again on 39 minutes after some sloppy defence which was against the run of play, but Wicklow took a 07-17 lead into the break.

The second half started in much the same way as the first half with opportunities for both sides and once again it was the visitors with a penalty on 53 minutes to extend the lead. 

 It was Longford, on 59 minutes that scored the next try as player/coach Henry Bryce broke through after some impressive strong carries from the pack.  Longford pressured hard from here on and the crowd could sense an upset.  Longford won a number of penalties and continued to kick for touch to gain field position.  

Unfortunately, the accuracy of the darts were not good enough and Wicklow were let off the hook on no less than 4 lineouts in the closing stages.  Longford conceded yet another penalty in a very scorable position, and that should have closed out the game.  

Fortunately, it was missed, and Longford managed to play it right back up to the opposition 5m to win a penalty advantage.  For some reason best known only to the referee, advantage ran out without making any gain and Wicklow were able to kick the ball out to end the game.  

Post-match reaction: Head coach Henry Bryce

“I thought we were in it, but two yellow cards, a lot of silly penalties is not going to help our process. 

“ We were asking the right questions at the right time throughout, but the game went their way when we couldn’t win any of our own set pieces, forcing us to go backwards.  

“I thought we were in it but to give away possession in the red zone, therefore we struggled. Fair play to Wicklow, they didn’t stop fighting to the end.  We give them the credit but also massive credit to our boys, who also didn’t stop fighting to the end there. 

“I thought we were very close, but Wicklow were very clinical in the breakdown, which is something we are working very hard on each week; however, we just came up short today.”

Break this weekend 

Longford have a welcome break this weekend which allows time for recovery of some of the injuries from the first couple of games. 

After two rounds of the campaign, we await our first win. However we have taken a losing bonus point from both games, one away from home and the second against the strong League Division 1B  favourites, while also preventing both teams taking bonus points. 

 It's all to play for ahead of a visit to Mullingar on the 16th of October.