Oughterard RFC 15, Creggs RFC 20.

On Sunday our Under-13 team made the journey to Oughterard to take on a physical home team. Early exchanges were tense and plenty of mistakes on both sides meant there was not much scoring.

On 23 minutes a strong carry from Kian Hughes led to the ball being moved quickly out wide where winger Sam Walsh beat a number of defenders to touch down in the corner.

However the home side went straight up the field and crossed the line on half time to leave the sides level at 5 points each at the break.

The second half was more fluid and began with the home team scoring their second try. This seemed to spur on the Creggs boys and some quick hands released Walsh again on the left wing who finished nicely in the corner with Harry Waldron striking the crossbar with the conversion attempt.

One minute later the ball was once again in Walsh’s hands and from half way he beat 4 defenders and flew clear to touch down under the posts. Waldron tapped over the extras leaving a bit of breathing space between the sides.

Some heroic defending in our own 22 looked like it was going to be enough to see the game out but with three minutes remaining the powerful Oughterard No. 8 scored and a nervy sideline watched on as their kicker lined up the conversion. He pulled the attempt and that allowed Creggs to kick long on the restart and pin the home team in their own 22.

A penalty was forced at the breakdown and Waldron made no mistake from just inside the 22 to leave Creggs 5 points up as the game restarted on the last play. When Daniel Nerney cleared to touch the large travelling support breathed a huge sigh of relief to see Creggs qualify for the Semi Final in two weeks time.

This was a superb disciplined performance and but for two controversially disallowed tries, both from Daniel Nerney it could have been a bigger winning margin.

Creggs Rugby: Davy Fetherstone, Matthew Donnelly, Declan hoare, Darragh Killeen, Oisin Connolly, Robbie McArdle, Joseph McSharry, Kian Hughes,Patrick Murray, Harry Waldron, Sam Walsh, Jack Lally, Daniel Nerney, Luke Hayes, Brian O’Connor, AJ Tully, Andrej Anic, Callum Clarke, Niall Tinon, Michael O’Brien, Raymond Mullin, Connor Hannon, Sean Richardson.