Kevin Cullen got his season as second team captain off to a winning start with a convincing 48-12 victory over CYM Terenure. It was the first blow out of the year for the team and coach Alan Hickey gave a lot of new and fringe players a chance to put their hands up and nail down a jersey for the year.Clondalkin opted to receive the ball from the kick off and Derek Murtagh, making his first start for the seconds in six years, set the tone for the day barging through two would be tacklers and then sucking in another three opposition forwards before eventually going to ground. New Welsh boy Jamie Davis single handidly cleaned out the ensuing ruck before scrum half Shane Young fed the Chris Brady Jebb led back line who went wide and made 50 metres before being brought to ground. CYM hands in the ruck gave Clon a penalty inside the opposition 22 with Clon opting for the line out. A clean take by Davis allowed Clon the chance to set up a maul but CYM having already seen the physicality displayed by Murtagh and Davis opted not to engage and Clondalkin were pinged for blocking. This allowed CYM some temporary respite.
It wasn’t long before Clondalkin were back in the opposition 22 with Colum Tighe crossing for the first score following a clean lineout take from Davis and a dominant maul from the Clondalkin pack. Next up was Kev Dunphy crossing after a strong carry from Kevin Cullen. The early introduction of former Leinster youth player Bobby ‘The Bouncer’ Smith added extra physicality to a dominant forward unit and The Bouncer made his presence known early as he bumped 4 players on his way to the line. Outhalf Chris Brady Jebb seemed a little jealous of the success the forwards were having a decided it was time he showed the skills that earned him an Ireland underage cap by dancing through the CYM centres and sprinting 30 yards before being brought down by the CYM fullback. Jebbers misfortune was Garry Geoghans gain as Gaygo was on hand to receive a sublime offload and crossed for the fourth try just before halftime.
If Jebber was unfortunate to be stopped just short of the line, he was even more unfortunate minutes later when his attempted charge down connected with him square in the face. The clean connection was a major concern for Collette until she realized she still has about 12,000 wedding photos to look at.
Ciaran Murphy seemed keen to hold onto his second team place and he followed up a dazzling break in the first half with a score early in the second. The impressive game from Murphy will no doubt be of concern to Carl ‘Crazy Legs’ Horan who may now need to get his parents to drop him to training on Mondays and Wednesdays to train with the thirds. The next score of the game came from the evergreen Stevey Cunningham with the former calendar pin up doing his World Cup chances no harm with a solid game all round. If his silky footwork en route to his try was not enough to have Joe Schmidt asking for his number then a drop goal from almost the halfway line will surely see him selected as back up to Robbie Henshaw.
Clondalkin were in cruise control at this stage and started to take the foot off the pedal much to the annoyance of coach Hickey and allowed CYM to cross for two easy scores. These two scores allowed the onlooking alicado’s of Fitzpatrick, Cuxy and Molly pipe in with their negative opinions and talk of the good old days when they used to play. Brady Jebb asked the forwards to start manning up in defense and some people took it a little too far with Murtagh coming close to seeing yellow following a shoulder charge on the opposition number 8.
Cullen decided it was time the game was closed out and demanded an instance reply from the forward unit. Harvey Munster was the first player to answer the call with the Cork newboy taking a perfect restart from Jebb. Big Jamie Davis then took the ball and half the opposing pack with him deep into the 22 before the visiting team were forced to concede a penalty. Young James ‘Barney’ Carron flew high in the resulting line out and set up a platform that allowed Darren Moore cross for the final score of the game.
Coach Alan Hickey was happy with the result but knows there will be things to be worked on in training during the week. He had this to say to clondalkinrugby.com “there were a lot of questions answered out there today. Our forwards worked well together and when the backline clicked they showed what they can do with ball in hand. However, there were things we will need to work on in training to be ready for the trip to Waterpark next week”.
Captain Kevin Cullen had this to say to clondalkinrugby.com “It was a good start to the season but we know we have bigger challenges ahead. It was great to see some of the new boys out there and big Jamie capped a debut game with a man of the match performance. One of the other new boys who really surprised me was Harvey not because of how he played but I think that’s the first time I seen him get out of his munster jersey all summer. We have a number of players to come back into the team over the coming weeks and there will be fierce completion for places which bodes well for the season ahead”.
(with thanks to Derek Murtagh).
