Young Munster stay in hunt

Cork Constitution 10 Young Munster 16

Though the hosts left scoring opportunities behind them, the better side won this mid-table battle, a victory which keeps Munsters in the hunt for honours with Con coach Tom Mulcahy admitting the league “looks to be beyond us”.

As both Clontarf and Old Belvedere recorded wins and continue to hold sway at the top, the Clifford Park side moved into third by virtue of this victory.

Munster Cup winners Constitution remain in sixth but 13 points off the pace and their best chance of major silverware now comes in the form of the Bateman (All-Ireland) Cup.

Con head coach Tom Mulcahy admitted as much as he expressed disappointment with the display and the outcome on Saturday. “The league looks to be beyond us at this stage, but we’ll keep battling and try and finish as high as we can in the table, and we’ve still got an All-Ireland Cup semi-final to come against Queens in two weeks. It’s hugely disappointing, particularly after the start we got, scoring a try inside two minutes, but we took our foot off the pedal. We had chances to go further ahead, but missed four kickable penalties although that wasn’t the reason we lost. Our work-rate was low, our attitude poor and it was just a bad day. We were within a metre of their line and had gone through eight or nine rucks only to give away two penalties in quick succession and hand them three points. We’ve got to learn how to score tries and put teams away.”

Although Con had that opening try from flying winger Conor Desmond, converted by Johnny Holland, it wasn’t the perfect start it appeared to be. Desmond was injured in the act of scoring and limped off.

It didn’t get better for Con either; Holland missed three penalties while Brian Haugh found the target twice for the visitors to leave just a point between the sides at the interval.

Tremendous Young Munster defence was the key to keeping control of the tie during a frantic five-minute spell between the ninth and 13th minutes and having survived that they hit back with a third penalty in 56 minutes from Haugh to take the lead for the first time. Colin Liston got a crucial 53rd-minute try that Haugh converted to push the advantage out to 16-7 and Young Munster held out comfortably despite an inevitable late rally from the Temple Hill side. It yielded a 79th minute penalty from Holland and a losing bonus point but that was very small consolation on a day when victory was of crucial importance.

CORK CONSTITUTION: D Lyons; C Desmond, L Duffy, N Kenneally, C Quinn; J Holland, G Hurley (captain); G Duffy, A O’Driscoll, G Sweeney; A Ross, Y Browne; J McSwiney, C O’Flaherty, J Ryan.

Rolling Replacements: M Abbott, R Burke, B Cagney, C Jouvre, M Murphy.

YOUNG MUNSTER: C O’Hanlon; D O’Connor, D Goggin, K Hifo, M Doyle; W Staunton, B Haugh; E Ryan, G Slattery (captain), H McGrath; A Kennedy, M Madden; T Goggin, S Rennison, C Liston.

Rolling Replacements: D Montgomery, G Ryan, K Hanly, S O’Brien, S Upton.

Referee: P Fitzgibbon (IRFU).