O’Brien and Doyle tries seal win for Newbridge

Newbridge College 14 Cistercian College Roscrea 3

It was a repeat of the league final that took place in December, but this was a more competitive affair, as Newbridge just couldn’t shake off their committed opponents.

Roscrea had the first scoring attempt, a high speculative Fionn Higgins’ drop goal. Newbridge were on top early on and Joe D’Arcy missed a penalty from just outside the 22.

A strong break by Mark Delaney ended with D’Arcy being bustled into touch at the beginning of the second quarter, and soon after, Newbridge had their opening try. O’Brien fooling the defensive cover brilliantly to go over and D’Arcy duly added the extras.

Tim Foley made it 7-3 at half time with a penalty however Doyle burst over six minutes into the second half and D’Arcy again converted. Roscrea were camped on the Newbridge line in the last 10 minutes but just could not breach the winners’ rearguard.

NEWBRIDGE COLLEGE: N Delahunt; M Delaney, J Howlett, A Shanahan, J D’Arcy; J O’Brien, M Sutton; Conor Doyle, C Johnson, J Phelan, Conor Doyle, Tom Treacy; C Nugent, M O’Connor, T Brady.

Replacements: J O’Neill for Shanahan (59), B Finan for Delaney (59), B Larkin for Treacy (64), R Drumgoole Larkin for Nugent (64), T O’Neill for Johnson (67); S Treacy for Brady (70+2)

CISTERCIAN COLLEGE ROSCREA: T Carroll; A Tynan, F Higgins, D Corcoran, R Wharton; T Foley, D Lavelle; A Ferragut, S Culleton, L Walsh; S Meagher, P Ennis; M Keane, M Kelly, P Gavin.

Replacement: S Leo for Walsh (70+7)

Referee: B O’Keeffe (ARLB).