No place like home for Crescent

Old Crescent 20 UCC 8

The hosts, who have struggled to show any consistency on their travels, badly needed this victory to keep them clear of the drop zone.

They now sit on 19 points, and hope that the manner of victory may act as a catalyst for the final third of the season.

“We are very relieved,” PRO Pat Rickard admitted. “A defeat would have put us into a relegation dog fight. We are unbeaten at home but we can’t win away. Hopefully that might change against Bective next week.

“Apart from the result, this was a great performances. We were very disciplined, something that was a problem in recent games, while our tackling and rucking was first class.”

Crescent enjoyed a seven-point interval lead with Lemeki Viapulu opening the scoring after 23 minutes with a well-worked try.

Brian Begley converted and added to his tally with a penalty in stoppage time which came seconds after Evan Ryan had UCC’s sole score of the opening half with a penalty.

The home side continued to impress after the break and extended their lead on the hour mark when Paddy Flynn touched down after a neat kick through. Begley again converted and although Sam Cronin had a UCC try 10 minutes later, Crescent, with Begley landing another penalty, finished most impressively.