Place in Under-16 decider secured by Wanderers
THE WEXFORD Wanderers Under-16s hosted Portarlington at Park Lane last Sunday in the final round of the Leinster League in a must-win fixture to secure a place in the final.
Wanderers started well with Conor Devereux scoring in the corner in the opening minutes before Tarnawski smashed over midway through the half to double the lead.
Portarlington rallied however and scored an unconverted try to narrow the gap before side-stepping outside centre Shane McGuinness evaded the visitors’ back line and scored in the corner to give Wanderers a 15-5 lead at the interval.
In the second period and with the wind in their backs, Wanderers continued to make good ground with Tarnawski, Kelly-Komalfe, Peilow and Dixon all carrying the ball strongly.
Indeed, one of the highlights of this contest was the skill Kel- ly-Komalfe displayed in time and again turning over the ball at the ruck and turning defence into attack. In this he was ably assisted by Roche at scrum-half who without fail flawlessly distributed the ball all day to his back line marshalled by Harney outside him.
In the second period Wanderers introduced O’Connor to midfield and almost immediately his athletic ability reaped results when he stripped the Portarlington defence to score near the posts to assist Kehoe with the conversion.
The visitors still had some fight left and scored a try on the left wing which they converted to narrow the gap.
Wanderers dug deep with the forwards keeping the pressure on, especially in the scrums and line-outs where Richards continued to excel despite the swirling wind. The last act of the game saw O’Connor stopped just short of the line on the right wing where quick recycling and even quicker thinking from out-half Harney saw him diagonally cut the visitors’ defence to score under the posts and give Wanderers a hard-fought and well-deserved 29-12 win. The side will face Carlow in a few weeks in the league final.
In other news, Wanderers’ first XV will travel to neutral Tullow next Sunday, March 26, to face Newbridge at 3 p.m. in the play-off of the Leinster League. The game provides Wanderers with a winner-takes-all opportunity to bury the disappointment of narrowly missing out on the Division 2B title and progress to Division 2A next season.
Your support would be greatly appreciated by both the players and coaching staff. Club supporters are advised to monitor the club social media outlets for updates on this and other fixtures.
Wexford: David Harte, Louis Richards, Seán Kelly-Komalofe, Jakub ‘Cuba’ Tarnawski, Ross Butler, Adam Peilow, Carlos Sasaran, James Dixon, Seán Roche, Michael Harney, Hugh Maguire, Conor Kelly, Shane McGuinness, Conor Kehoe, Conor Devereux. Subs. - Adam Kelly, Josh O’Connor, Ben McGuinness, Luke Walsh, James Mernagh, Rúairí Fenlon, Geoff Maher, Maurice Logue, Feidhlim Roche, Emmet Nolan.