Thurles ended a good run of form with defeat to a strong Muskerry outfit

Munster Junior Rugby League 

Thurles RFC 14

Muskerry 17

Thurles entertained Muskerry in gameday seven of the Munster Junior One league last Sunday. With the aid of the wind in the first half Thurles very quickly found themselves attacking within the away teams 22.

A series of pick and drives by the pack were just held up short before Thurles fed their back line, James Maher hitting Sonny Dwyer on the crash ball only to be held up inches short, Luke Kelly following on picked up from the ruck and dived in for Thurles’s opening score under the posts, with the conversion added Thurles led 7-0 after three minutes.

Thurles were moving the ball very well and their structured ball-carrying in the first 15 minutes had the away team scrambling. On 12 minutes, Conor Moloney who carried tirelessly all day for Thurles broke a tackle and broke into the Muskerry 22, offloading brilliantly as the cover got to him to the supporting Eoin Dwyer who broke a couple of tackles before sprinting in for Thurles’s second try close to the posts.

This was as good as it got for Thurles in the first half and although having powered to an early 14-point lead, Thurles failed to register another score for the entire game.

For the period from 15 minutes to 30 minutes Thurles, through great defensive work and line speed kept the Muskerry team pinned in their half.

But the away team held on to the ball using their big forwards to carry and recycle for long periods, albeit going over and back across the field, but all the time running down the clock and negating considerable wind advantage for Thurles.

A pivotal moment came on 29 minutes when Thurles winger Luke Fogarty was somewhat harshly adjudged to have deliberately batted down a ball in attempting to intercept a pass in an area of the field where there was absolutely no threat of an imminent score.

This reduced the Thurles to 14 men. From the ensuing penalty, Muskerry got their first field position in the Thurles 22 having found kicking into the wind difficult. Thurles were defending comfortably when Mark Cummins was deemed to have tip-tackled a Muskerry forward despite having safely landed the player and never going above the horizontal.

This gave Muskerry the platform their large pack needed, a good lineout maul and subsequent phases saw them eventually breach the Thurles line close to the posts, well converted by the Muskerry fly half into the wind to leave the score at 14-7.

Thurles kicked off the second half into the teeth of worsening wind conditions and were very soon on the defensive.
The Thurles defence held up well until 13 minutes into the second half when after sustained pressure and several penalties the Muskerry second row offloaded out of a maul close to the line for their winger to scoop up the ball and score.

The try was converted to leave the score at 14-14 with 25 minutes remaining. Thurles rallied and after some hard carrying and approach play slowly gaining ground up the field they won a penalty 30 metres out and just left of the posts. Thurles opted to kick for points into a very difficult breeze.

Possibly in hindsight, backing their lineout and trying to maximise the return on the very few hard-earned visits to the Muskerry 22 may have been the better call.

A successful kick only secured three points, and gave up hard-earned yards with the kick-off, but a missed kick gave up a free dropout from the 22 which landed down at the Thurles 22 and resulted in instantaneous pressure again, which again after some desperate Thurles defence ended up with a shot at goal for Muskerry straight in front wind assisted which they duly converted with 20 minutes left to go.

Loads of time left for either team to snatch the game. Thurles did give themselves lifelines through some very hard work by their forwards and had enough possession in the opposition's 22 and went very close with ten minutes remaining to add to their try total only for a handling error close to the line scuppering them.

With ten to go Thurles brought on some fresh legs and fought hard for the remaining few minutes but were thwarted by a strong Muskerry defence some tired bodies and misplaced and dropped passes.

Thurles will have some well-earned rest over Christmas to recover and hopefully get some injured players back in time for their next league game away to Bandon on the 14th of January.

Thurles RFC: Ger McCormack, Shane Nugent, Stephen Kirwan, Luke Kelly, Colin Nolan, Mark Cummins, Sam Quinlan, Conor Moloney, Seamus Holahan, James Maher, Cathal Hayes, Sonny Dwyer, Eoghan Dwyer, Luke Fogarty, Paddy McGrath.

Subs: Ciaran Murphy, Jack Kavanagh, Dan Diamini, Donnacha Ryan, Peter Wall, Jack Flanagan, Noah Mellor, Kieran O’Hagan.