Brave fightback from seconds falls short

ward pass - a let-off for Dundalk.

The Dundalk forwards worked hard, knowing they were in for a tough outing.

Although it was a successful night for the pack on their own set pieces, the Ardee hooker dealt well with Dundalk trying to put their lineout under pressure.

Dundalk conceded their first try after Ardee ran a number of phases through their pack inside the Dundalk 22 and the ball was spread to their full back Conor Hennessey to score inside the 20-minute mark. Again, Dundalk had difficulty holding onto the ball and were soon defending inside their own 22 once more, from where the ball was spread to Ardee’s first centre who found a gap and scored under the posts.

Being two scores down, Dundalk ran a number of good phases, and winning their own lineout inside the Ardee 22 led to running another phase, but they lost the ball and Ardee’s fast backline ran the ball as far as the Dundalk 22.

The hosts kept up their fast phases and spread the play for their first centre to score again.

Dundalk knew that 19-0 down to Ardee inside the first half-hour was not good enough as their continuity play was letting them down.

They reacted by playing the ball down into the Ardee half and winning their lineout comfortably.

This led to a maul and although hooker Sean Arrowsmith was stopped short, John Kerr was there to support and cross over the line.

By half-time Dundalk knew that it was all to play for at 19-5 down as they nearly got over for a breakaway try just before the break.

There was also big room for improvement and Ardee weren’t going to hold back as they lost a 21-0 lead in their previous outing.

The second half started with most of the play in the middle of the pitch. Dundalk tried to cut the gap between the teams to within two scores but missed a longrange penalty which was short. This led to another Ardee counter attack which was stopped short of the try line.

After a number of high tackles, Ardee were finally punished with a yellow card, from which Dundalk took advantage for Robbie Williams to score. Darragh Conroy converted to make it 19-12.

Dundalk were still chasing the game with 10 minutes left, but their decision-making let them down and Ardee picked a loose ball and won a penalty in front of the posts to extend their lead to eight, with an unfortunate Dundalk sin-binning rubbing salt in the wounds.

The visitors didn’t give up and they ran a number of successful phases which led to a penalty inside the Ardee 22, from which Laurence Steen took a quick tap to score.

This was the last match of the season for Dundalk 2nds who finished third in the Leinster 1A Seconds League. Co captains Robin McGee and Christopher McGeady would like to thank coaches Barry Durnin and Declan McCabe, while it was also another year to thank team manager Brian Byrne. DUNDALK: John Kerr, Sean Arrowsmith, Zac Bolton, Diarmuid Sloan, Robin McGee, Greg Whately, Mark Pepper, Tiernan Gonnelly, Sam Mulligan, Darragh Conroy, Matt Lourdes, Andrew Williams, Laurence Steen, Robert Williams, Paddy Duffy, Conor Williams, John Mcgahon, Ciaran Lennon, Craig Colgan, Danny O’Hagan.