Irish provinces complete clean sweep in Celtic Cup
DRAGONS A picked up a bonus point in their 40-31 home defeat to Ulster A as the Irish provinces completed a clean sweep over their Welsh rivals in the Celtic Cup.
The Dragons led 17-12 at the break at Ystrad Mynach, but were swept aside by a Ross Adair hattrick and 13 points from the boot of Bruce Houston in a game that included 10 tries, six of them to the visitors.
Leinster A topped the half-century mark for the third time this season as they ran in eight tries in a 54-24 win at St Helen’s as the Ospreys Development XV went the same way as their Welsh regional counterparts Cardiff Blues A (47-28) and Scarlets A (50-12) in going down to heavy defeat to the reigning champions.
The home side lost No,8 Morgan Morris and prop Rhys Davies to yellow cards in the first half and by the break they were trailing by 26 points after Leinster had plundered tries from Ronan Watters (2), Adam La Grue and Dan Sheehan. James Tarrant converted three of them on his way to a 14-point match haul.
Tom Williams got the Ospreys off the mark with a corner effort in the second half and the home side picked up three more to bag a bonus point. Josh Moore, Keiran Williams and George Gasson were the extra scorers, while Leinster added more tries through Liam Turner, Paddy Patterson, Gavin Mullin and Rob Russell.
Scarlets A led 10-7 in Galway against Connacht Eagles, but eventually had to settle for a losing bonus point in a 20-16 defeat. Harri Doel got the Scarlets try and the rest of the points came from the boot of Ioan Hughes.
Connacht replied with tries from Peter Sullivan, Diarmuid Kilgannen and Cormac Daly. Luke Carty added a conversion and penalty.
Cardiff Blues A slumped to a fourth defeat as they were beaten 28-7 by Munster A in Cork. The home side picked up a bonuspoint that allowed them to leapfrog the Blues and leave the capital region at the bottom of the table. The only points for the visitors came from a converted try by Josh Male, although they had another effort from Mason Grady disallowed that could have brought things level at 14-14.