Buccaneers make light of red card as Carty delivers

A LIVELY Ulster Bank AIL Division 1B battle at Dubarry Park culminated in a morale-boosting Buccaneers win despite playing with 14 men for nearly an hour.

This fixture also decided who will host Garryowen in the semi-final of the Bateman Cup, so Buccaneers were particularly pleased to eke out victory over their rivals.

Galwegians centre Tadhg Leader landed a smashing second-minute penalty as the visitors took an early lead, but Buccaneers, with Jack Carty clever at fly-half, responded.

Carty, who could feature for Ireland in the Under-20 Six Nations, nailed a ninth-minute penalty before Buccaneers had David Heffernan red-carded when the flanker appeared to lift centre Brian Murphy off the ground.

Carty was sharp and added two more penalties as Buccaneers departed at the interval armed with a 9-3 advantage.

Galwegians had scrum half Barry Lee sin-binned but Leader trimmed the deficit to 9-6. But Carty had the last word by knocking over his fourth penalty.

BUCCANEERS: J O’Brien; S Layden, P Harte, A Kennedy, C Finn, J Carty, M Dolan; M Staunton, G Halligan, D Higgins, J Tormey, D Qualter, D Heffernan, E Grace, K Kiripati.

Replacements: C Bolland for O’Brien (66).

GALWEGIANS: J Clery; C Conroy, B Murphy, T Leader, P Finn, R Shaughnessy, B Lee; J Naughton, C Muldoon, J Stephens, E Tarmey, B McClearn, I O’Grady, I Muldoon, D Murphy. Replacements: D O’Hara for Tarmey (41), J East for Naughton (62), C O’Connell for Muldoon (74).

Referee: S Gallagher (IRFU).