Seconds keep run going
THE WEXFORD Wanderers second XV hosted New Ross on Sunday at Park Lane in the first act of a historic double derby fixture.
Wanderers have over the past number of weeks been building steadily with good wins in Park Lane against Kilkenny and Gorey following a narrow opening round loss to Athy on the road.
The game started fairly evenly for both sides before New Ross started to exert pressure on a slightly rusty and frantic Wanderers which yielded an unconverted try after ten minutes.
Midway through the half New Ross doubled their lead with a second unconverted try. While most sides might have thought of damage limitation at this stage, Wanderers awoke like a giant from their slumber and hard running resulted in prop Bob O’Leary crossing the whitewash seven minutes before the interval. Unfortunately, the conversion by Hudson drifted wide.
With a renewed urgency, Wan- derers pressed again and on the stroke of half-time Callum Murphy managed to worm his way through the New Ross defence in the corner to level the score at 10-10 with an unconverted try.
Anticipation of the second-half was palatable among the sizeable support with the score so closely tied.
In the second period when Wanderers were in possession they were able to keep bombarding New Ross with long ranging kicks into the corners, similar to the fashion in which New Ross had used the wind in the opening period.
However, with such windy conditions a score, if it was going to come from anywhere, was going to come by working the ball slickly through the hands. On a few occasions Carty managed to take a number of quick penalties to crash the New Ross line and set up the phase play for the forwards.
Similarly, both Murphy and O’Neill were energetic when running back any wayward kicks from New Ross and on many occasions managed to avoid both first and second defenders before creating the platform for support players.
The final score when it came was somewhat similar to Wanderers’ first when in broken play O’Leary managed to take the ball at pace and crash through a number of defenders before touching down for an unconverted try with three minutes on the clock. The final score in a memorable victory was Wexford 15, New Ross 10.
The win moves Wanderers up to second in the table just three points behind leaders Athy. Next week sees Wanderers in derby action for the third match in a row when they travel to Ross Road on Saturday to face Enniscorthy in another significant fixture.
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Team: Bob O’Leary, Kevin Redmond, Jason Guerrine, Helmut Burger Smit, Rory O’Connor, Michael McGuire, Alan Kinsella, Cillian McConville, James Bolger, Tommy Hudson, Tom Barry, Corey Carty, Noel Richards, Callum Murphy, Aaron O’Neill. Subs. - Chris Vickery, Gavin Doyle, Chris Walsh, Trevor Devereux.