’Stones march on Seapoint blitzed by super six-try haul in Dr Hickey Park
at Dr Hickey Park GREYSTONES RFC SEAPOINT 41 8
GREYSTONES turned on the style in the second half as they romped to a whopping 33-point victory over Seapoint in their Leinster Senior League Division 2A tie at Dr Hickey Park on Saturday afternoon.
Only on level terms – at 3-3 – at half-time, the home side cut loose on the resumption and left their opponents, who are coached by former Ireland and British and Irish Lions wing-forward Eric Miller, floundering as they ran in six tries – from Joel Penders. Congall Callan, Matthew O’Brien, Ferdia Kenny, Ian Cullinane and Barry Treanor.
As well, Andrew Kealy who kicked a first half penalty, and converted three of the tries, while sub Conor Byrne also landed a conversion.
Furthermore, ‘Stones prevented Seapoint from adding to their halftime score until full-back Declan Byrne crossed for a try just five minutes from the final whistle.
Commenting on his side’s performance, Greystones coach Kevin Lewis said: “A team like Seapoint are very hard to break down
“Sometimes in the first half you are going to have to fight your way through it, but we were happy with 38-5 in the second half.
“We learned our lesson in the first half and we won the breakdown battle in the second half.
“In the first half, we were playing against a very strong wind, and sometimes in rugby you have just got to be patient. But we still had about 75 per cent in terms of possession and territory, and when you have that kind of stats, you know that you are doing something right
“In the second half, they could hardly get out of their own half, and they conceded a lot of penalties, and ultimately we put them under a lot of pressure, and our scrum really came to the fore and put them under more pressure I suppose.
“After also winning our first match in this season’s League against Skerries, we’re now in the semi-final of the League regardless of our next match against Old Wesley. And if we win that match, we also qualify for the quarter-final of the Leinster Senior Cup, so there’s another bonus to win next week as well.
“We have a decent squad of players and thankfully we’ve managed to stay reasonably injury-free at the moment. Today was a great chance to try out more players who haven’t had a game so far.
“We have a good bunch, they’re all working really hard and they know what the target is – our match against Wanderers in three weeks’ time in the AIL,” added the Greystones coach.
And asked for his views on Seapoint’s performance, Eric Miller, who won 48 Irish caps, and also captured a Dublin under-21 football medal with Ballyboden St Enda’s and had a trial for the Dublin senior football team, said: “We’ve got a lot of new faces in the club this year, we obviously played on Tuesday against Wesley and I suppose a bit of tiredness was a factor in our second half performance.
“Our body language probably didn’t do justice to our first half performance, we need to not give away as many penalties as we did.
“There are a lot of challenges in the club with guys in jobs – the same as everywhere – and we’re notorious slow starters.
“Fair play to Greystones – they retained the ball very well and deserved many of their scores and particularly in the second half.
“We’ve come from junior level from the last five to 10 years and we’re holding our own. And we’re trying to maximise with what we have in our own league, which is a tough league, and we’re hoping to kick on this year from finishing in mid-table last year.
“We’re at home to Skerries in our next match next Saturday and we’re looking forward to that,” added the Seapoint coach who also acts as coach to Edenderry rugby team and to the CUS school in Dublin.
Despite the one-sided nature of the contest in the second half, it was the visiting side who opened the scoring when scrum-half Cian Buckley split the posts from a penalty on the 22 metre line after 10 minutes.
However, with seven minutes remaining in the opening half, ‘Stones got back on level terms when Kealy split the posts from a penalty, and the sides retired at the half-time break on level terms.
On the restart, the home side wasted little time in asserting their superiority, and a concerted drive ended with hooker Joel Penders touching down after just three minutes.
Seven minutes later, centre Congall Callan breached the opposing defence and Kealy converted to put Greystones 15-3 up.
On 61 minutes, winger Matthew O’Brien registered the third try, and just five minutes later his wing counterpart Ferdia Kenny followed suit, with Kealy landing both conversions, leaving the home side 29-3 in front.
The fifth try was supplied by No 8 Ian Cullinane on 29 minutes, sub Conor Byrne converting, and after Declan Byrne had provided some consolation for Seapoint with a try in the left corner, Greystones cancelled out that score with a try from sub Barry Treanor just before the final whistle.
GREYSTONES: Jason Curran; Ferdia Kenny, Congall Callan, Ryan O’Loughlin, Matthew O’Brien; Andrew Kealy, Andrew Roberts; Viktor Zalenda, Joel Penders, Conor Pearse, Christopher Simmonds, Oisin Lennon, Eoin Marmion, Cormac O’Donoghue, Ian Cullinane. Subs: Daniel Norse, Barry Treanor. Ronan Mannion, Jeff O’Loughlin, Conor Byrne, Ian McMahon, James Dempsey.
SEAPOINT: Declan Byrne; James Farrell, Dave O’Reilly, Gavin Hayes, Andy Guerin; Brian Guerin, Cian Buckley; Mark McDonald, Conor Montayne, Owen Dalton, Mark Molloy, Kark Bittle, Brian Duggan, Alexander McCauley, Zach Jungmann. Subs: Andrew Heffernan, Owen O’Leary, Peter Lyons, Tiernan Maleiffe, Andy Sloan, Peter Collins, Simon Chadwick.
REF: Bernie White (Enniscorthy).