Late Late try by McLoughlin wins the day for Skerries in Greystones.

Skerries U14s won a thrilling match with a late comeback away to Greystones on Sunday. The game started with Skerries kicking off, but straight away the Greystones backs ran at them finding a gap in midfield and scoring a converted try. From the resulting kick Skerriess defence was beaten again, Greystones got posssession and outflanked the defence to score another converted try. This left Skerries 14 nil down after 3 minutes of the match.

After this Skerries started to play , with the forwards proving strong in the rucks, the ball was passed to captain David Goodman , who made a great break from his own half to score. Eoin McLaughlin converted. This gave Skerries some renewed confidence in themselves, and the forwards were winning the forward battle.

Ryan Carty and Rory OBrien have improved dramatically over the past number of weeks, and are adding to the strength of the Skerries pack.

Also very impressive in the Skerries pack were Con Marry, Killian Moore ,Tom Carron Dean McCreary and Zack Sharkey.

With the renewed confidence the Skerries forwards were more than a match for Greystones and were providing good ball for the backs. David Goodman made another great break from his own half and was stopped just short of the line, from the resulting play, Mark McIlroy powered through the defenders only to be held up on the line, from the ruck, Niall McCann picked up and dived through the bodies of the defenders to score.

Approaching half-time Greystones managed to break through the Skerries defence and score in the corner to leave it 21 12 to Greystones at half-time.

Following a strong half-time team talk from Coach Gerry Carron who gave the players belief in themselves that they could win this game, Skerries approached the second half with renewed confidence.

From the restart a Skerries attack was repelled by the powerful Greystones full back who ran from his own 22 to score a great try. The score was now 26-12 to Greystones.

Skerries fought back immediately .Following some great forward play, the ball was passed along the backs to David Goodman who ran at the Greystones defence powerfully to score his second try of the match, unfortunately he failed to convert. Skerries kept pushing forward, from a flowing back move the ball was moved from Goodman to Dean Lacey who passed it to Michael Carron to Donal Flynn who made a good break down the wing only to be forced in to touch, Skerries won the lineout and Niall McCann made a great run and despite being tackled kept moving forward being stopped just 10m out. The Skerries forwards were very strong and retained possession, Ian Whelan the Skerries scrum half passed the ball out to Goodman, who showed his pace and strength to score his hat trick in the corner With 5 minutes left at this stage it was 26 22 to Greystones, who looked like they were going to hold out, but in the last move of the match Skerries went on the attack with the backs moving the ball across the line to McLoughlin on the right wing who took the ball at pace and ran from 50 metres out to score a thrilling winning try.

It was a great performance by this Skerries team, especially after giving the opposition a two try lead after only 3 minutes.
Overall an impressive team performance. and particularly well done to David Goodman who scored a hat trick of tries and led the team in the absence at the start of Conn Marry. Mark McIlroy continues to improve and the return of Niall McCann added some real bite to our forward play.

Roll on the Welsh!