Strong second half from Skerries costs Rathdrum

at Ivy Leaf Grounds 17 27

caught up with Rathdrum. Skerries’ bigger pack started dominating the set pieces and their lineout was particularly strong.

It was off two lineouts that they scored two of their three tries in the second half. Rathdrum started giving away penalties at the breakdown and this allowed Skerries to get in to the home sides ’22 and use their strong maul to drive over to score two unconverted tries.

Rathdrum kept plugging away but just couldn’t get in to touching distance of the Skerries line. Calvin Swords, Ciaran Phelan and Steven Dowling were working hard all day but the Skerries defence was holding firm.

A third and final second half try from Skerries came courtesy of an intercept pass. This sealed the bonus point for the Dublin side and was converted to bring the score to 27-10 to Skerries with about 10 minutes to play.

It was a day for the intercept pass and Rathdrum ended the day with another. Ronan Phelan stole a ball in his own half and made an interesting break and offloaded to Seanie Kinsella and he duly touched down under the posts. The try was converted by Parsons to finish the scoring with Skerries running out winners with a scoreline of 27-17.

Again, Rathdrum will be disappointed they let this slip when they were in a winning position but they can look forward to a busy few weeks with renewed optimism. Next up for Rathdrum is an away trip to Malahide this Friday the 12th and following that they are at home to Old Wesley on the 21st.

Ronan Smith, Dean Franey, Danny Tuke, Ciaran O’Neill, Shane Burch, Matt Binnions, Calvin Swords, Danny Dowling, Steven Dowling, Ronan Phelan, Karl Phelan, Ciaran Phelan, Conor Parsons, Aonghus O’Briain, Sean Kinsella, Shane Byrne.

Well done to the club for raising €700 for the Rathdrum Cancer Support group from the collection from the Houndogs game on St. Stephens Day. The cheque was handed over to Bill Porter prior to Sunday’s game. Thanks to all the supporters who braved the cold weather to cheer on both the ladies and men’s teams.

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