Big win for Wicklow
U18 premier side claim victory away against Tullow
THE Wicklow under-18 girls travelled to Carlow on Saturday to take on Tullow in the Leinster Premier League more in hope than expectation shorn of three players away at an Ireland under-18 camp and a number of other players who were unavailable.
Wicklow knew they would face a battle both from Tullow and the elements as theirs was the only youth’s game to go ahead in the south east on Saturday.
Wicklow won the toss adn elected to play with the gale force wind and in the opening 20 minutes they enjoyed the majority of the possession and territory but struggled with the greasy conditions and the ball blowing away from them in the pass.
The Tullow girls were also defending with great determination and were proving very difficult to get past.
The visitors eventually breached the defence with some hard driving in close from the forwards to lead 0-5.
Tullow though struck back nearly straight from the kick-off when the kick was spilt forward giving them good field position and they struck off the scrum to score under the posts.
This was converted to leave the home team ahead by 7-5.
Wicklow responded well to this set back and with only 10 minutes left in the first half scored two converted tries underneath the posts and one unconverted try out wide to leave Wicklow ahead 5-24 at the break.
This was a tough lead to defend playing into the teeth of a gale and driving rain, but this Wicklow girls team showed massive character and grit to pick up their performance and push into the Tullow half from the kick-off with aggressive defending and line speed they harried the Tullow girls and this pressure was rewarded with another driving try to leave the score at 7-29 going into the final quarter.
This Tullow side though are tough and their never say die attitude was shown as the fought back with two quickfire tries that were converted to leave the score 21-29 with ten minutes left.
Wicklow had not travelled down to Tullow to lose and they rolled up their sleeves and the remainder of the match was played in the Tullow 22 with Wicklow looking the most likely of wither team to score.
This was a great game played out in dreadful conditions by two wonderful sides with superb character shown by both sides both teams should be very proud of themselves.