Creggs RFC 36, Loughrea RFC 19.

The venue for the Connacht Under-14 Boys Plate Final last Sunday was Dubarry Park in Athlone. And in lovely sunshine Creggs played Loughrea.

The Creggs Rugby Under-14 Squad Pictured at their Connacht Final win over Loughrea RFC were in the Back Row: Ben Martin, Conor Higgins, Mark Beisty, Micky Daly, Rory Kelly, Conor Keane, Cian Fitzmaurice, James Trundle, Rory Webb, Conor Diffley, Robert Blighe, Harrison de Souza Paixao, Padraig O’Farrell, Pierce Fannon, Harry Kilcoyne, Jack Dolan,Cian Kiernan, Roger Connolly, and Jake Ferguson. Front Row: Luke Shally, Tom Sexton, Gerard Greene, AdamSmyth, Martin Gurren, Dan Kelly, Jack Walsh, Kaylum Curran, Jack Finn, Daniel Fleming, Cian Trimble, Myles McSharry, Dylan Fallon, Michael Byrne and Sam Kearns.

Creggs played with a strong breeze at their backs in the first half. They kicked off deep in to the Loughrea half. Jack Dolan was up quickly and brilliantly blocked the returning kick which spun back behind the Loughrea try line and was touched down by the alert Kaylum Curran. It was an ideal start and the try scorer added the conversion to race in to a 7 point lead.

Both teams settled in to the game, but the Creggs boys were in good form and they scored again when Cian Trimble touched-down in the corner, taking the score to 12-0 to Creggs.

Loughrea responded swiftly and got over the line for a try, which was also converted, to narrow the gap to 12-7. Ten for a spell of play, Creggs were reduced to 14 players due to a high tackle.

The Creggs boys restarted and were not long adding another converted try through Cian Kieran. This extended the Creggs lead to 19-7, and brought the curtain on the first half.

With the wind still prevailing the big question was, would 12 points be enough to hold out? From the restart Loughrea were very quick to narrowed the gap to five points with a well worked try and conversion. Game on!

However, the Creggs boys started to play some impressive rugby and ran over three more tries scored by Kaylum Curran, Dan Kelly and a second for Cian Trimble, One of the three was also converted, which extended their lead to 36-12.

It looked that the game was now beyond Loughrea’s reach, but they continued to battle and were rewarded with a try and conversion to narrow gap to 36-19. And that was the final score. Congratulations and well done to all the players and coaches.