Super students have last say
That win helped the Limerick side to a second-place finish in Division 2, enough for promotion to the top tier next season.
For the students, however, that loss, combined with further setbacks against Clonakilty and Highfield, saw UCC just miss out on promotion. They did finish in the top four, however, and an away win last week against table-toppers Buccaneers saw them qualify for this AIL Division 2 final.
After a pretty sterile first half, the college eventually came good and six well-struck penalty goals by on-song out-half Gavin Dunne saw them emerge as Division 2 champions, a decent consolation.
“We’ve had a tough season,” said first-year coach Conor Twomey, “But this caps it off. The disappointment of not winning promotion, we’ll get over that, but it’s great to lift a trophy. Great rivalry with Young Munster also this year, it was good to turn them over today.”
It was a surprising kind of a win for UCC, not so much in the fact that they bucked the odds but in the manner of the victory. Tries would normally be the hallmark of any College team, the ball flying through adventurous young hands at all angles, but UCC won this game on the ground. Just one try scored (for Young Munster open side Eoin Ryan) indicates that despite the dry conditions, this was more dog-fight than dancing-feet; the fact then that when the chips were down, it was Young Munster conceding kickable penalty after kickable penalty shows they were the ones under greater pressure as the game wore on, a fact conceded by coach Michael Lynch.
“I’m very, very disappointed for the lads,” he said, “they worked extremely hard for this but at times today I thought they looked really tired. I would certainly attribute that to the ferocity and the controlled aggression of the UCC lads, I was very impressed with them. We watched a number of videos of their games, they were probably the form team all season and they proved today they are an outstanding side. I don’t think anyone can take from what they’ve achieved, they were unlucky not to score a couple of tries. We created a few chances ourselves but took too many wrong options at critical times.”
Tighthead Stephen Archer typified the UCC ferocity and aggression spoken of by Lynch, but he was ably abetted by Wayne Falvey and Ronan O’Neill in the front row, by Ian Nagle and Neilus Keogh (both superb in the lineout) in the engine-room, by Dave Nathan, Dan Keogh and Rob Barry in an all-action back row that more than matched a competitive Young Munster trio of Liam Óg Murphy, Eoin Ryan and Mark Shorely. Scrumhalf Cronin was named man-of-the-match but he was the first to acknowledge the efforts of that pack.
“Our front row were enormous again, they’re outweighed in every game we play but they still put in the hard hits, the big scrums, and I’m so thrilled for them. For young lads we front up a lot, this kind of experience will stand to us. A lot of the boys will be men next year because of the season we’ve just had.”
Does it make up for the disappointment of losing out on promotion? “It does and it doesn’t; we want to win trophies and we are Division 2 champions now, but promotion was the big prize.”
Where next for these impressive young students, where do the likes of team captain Alex Kelleher, his three-quarter partners Ivan Dineen, Colin Crowley and Peter Shallow, go from here? What about that pack, fullback Scott Deasy?
“Going nowhere, hopefully,” says coach Twomey, “Stay on in college with us. They’re all still there for next year, but every year brings a different challenge.”
“We’re all there again next year,” Cronin confirmed, “It’s the first year in a long time we haven’t lost a lot of players. Hopefully next year we can really push for promotion.”
S. Deasy; P. Shallow, I. Dineen, A. Kelleher, C. Crowley; G. Dunne (6P), S. Cronin; R. O’Neill, W. Falvey, S. Archer; I. Nagle, N. Keogh; D. Nathan, D. Keogh, R. Barry. Subs: B. Dennehy (Kelleher inj 53); J. Carton (O’Neill 73).
M. Connolly (1P); S. Carey, D. Corcoran, C. Clohessy, E. Broderick; T. Wells, C. Murray; G. Flaherty, G. Slattery, H. McGrath; D. Payne, S. O’Neill; L. Óg Murphy, E. Ryan (1T), M. Shorely. Subs: M. South (Clohessy inj. 42); D. Grace (Wells 61); A. Cotter (McGrath 66); P. McMahon (Slattery 73); J. Ryan (E. Ryan 73).
D. Keane (Leinster).
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