’Stones sink to bottom

Blackrock come out on top in the basement battle

BLACKROCK GREYSTONES 17 8

WITH the mid-point of the All Ireland League season fast approaching Greystones find themselves at the foot of Division 2A, two points behind their hosts last Friday evening Blackrock.

Back in August when they were romping home to facile 50 point victories over lower league opposition in the Leinster Senior League they won’t have been planning for such a relegation battle but as the days shorten and temperature drops that’s exactly where they find themselves.

The tale of woe experienced by Greystones, who have lost the best part of a starting fifteen to injury at different stages of this season, has been documented before but still plays a huge part in defining their season to date.

All of this just poured added significance onto Friday night’s fixture against a side who, at the start of play, were two point behind Stones and propping up the table.

As Kevin Lewis commented last week this game was an eight-pointer.

Greystones started with a flourish and took the game to ‘Rock from the opening whistle, pressing the home side deep into their own half thanks to the controlling boot of Andrew Kealy playing in the ten position with regular outhalf Killian Marmion switching to full back.

Kealy probed the corners looking for field position with strike runners constantly pressuring the defenders not allowing Blackrock any territory.

In fact there was 25 minutes on the clock before the home side had any meaningful foray into the Greystones half and by that time Greystones had built up an eightpoint lead.

Kealy opened the scoring after just three minutes with a well taken penalty from the ten metre line after Blackrock were penalised in a ruck and with just over ten minutes played Jack Keating finished off a wonderful move in the corner for Greystones’ only try of the night.

Bobby Clancy, taking a ball from a Greystones ruck on the half way line, went off on a trade mark battering run at the Blackrock defence taking three men to bring him down, the recycled ball was fed to Marmion coming into the line from his full back position, skipped past the Blackrock wing reaching the 22 before he was stopped.

Next up hooker Ben Tou emulated Clancy’s running style, taking the recycled ball at pace hitting the line hard and leaving four defenders strewn before scrum half Andy Roberts eventually fed Kealy who brilliantly stepped inside a Blackrock backrow forward defending the narrow side and burst clear into space.

With perfect timing he drew the defender and sent a pass into the hands of the supporting Marmion, who in turn fed Keating who finished in the corner.

The touchline conversion failed to split the posts.

With rain falling incessantly throughout the evening playing conditions were difficult at best turning the ball into the proverbial bar of soap.

As a result the game degenerated with both sides unable to control the ball suffering repeated knock-ons and turnovers.

The area where Greystones have suffered most with absence of key players such as Captain Dan Mannion has been in the scrum and the conditions played straight into the hands of the home pack.

Repeated handling errors led to countless numbers of scrums. Initially the lightweight Greystones pack stood up well with U-20 debutant Chris Simmonds packing down in the second row not looking out of place at all.

As the half wore on and the scrum count off the chart Blackrock started to dominate.

They cashed in on their dominance with their first real attack on the Greystones line earning a couple of scrum penalties close in before the referee awarded the inevitable penalty try and seven points on the board.

The gap between the sides remained just a point for much of the second half as the conditions worsened and both sides struggled to put any meaningful play together.

Greystones had their chances to increase the lead, in the first half when wing Matt O’Brien made a break down the left wing only to be stopped short and the on rushing Andy Roberts failing to hold O’Briens pass with the line at his mercy.

The second in a game of few chances for either side fell to Keating mid-way through the second half.

Marmion pounced on a Blackrock handling error to kick through a loose ball with Keating leading the chase to the line only to be defeated by the sticky pitch when he tried to control the ball with his feet inches short of the line and missed the touchdown.

Blackrock edged in front in a game that for large parts they never looked like winning with a penalty conversion fifteen minutes from time and they denied Greystones anything from the match five minutes from the end with a try that had just a little bit of farce about it.

Attacking from the base of their scrum on the 22 metre line number eight Alan Francis charged straight at referee Karrol Collins knocking him to the ground gaining about 15 metres in the process.

With the referee taken out of the game a scrum to the attacking side was awarded to restart and Blackrock took full advantage with a move that brought Ireland 7 a-side international Mark Roche into the play with a scything run and touchdown.

Outhalf Peter Quirk nailed the conversion to exact full points and leave the final score Blackrock 17-8 Greystones.

Greystones will rue another game where they have come out on the wrong side of the scoreline feeling they could have won.

Next up they face league leaders Malone at Dr Hickey Park in two weeks time followed by back to back fixtures against third placed Queens University.

Coach Kevin Lewis will be looking to take something from those games and hopefully welcome back some of his walking wounded before facing the return fixtures against the sides immediately above them in the table in early January knowing if they are to climb away from the bottom of the table they must take maximum points from the teams around them.