Skerries 82
Blackrock 0

 

A crisp Sunday morning in Stradbrook Road saw Skerries under-13s take on Blackrock. A tough game was expected but within a minute of the start, Skerries winger Robert McKey galloped away up the left touchline to score.

It was the sign of things to come as the Skerries team played with verve and organisation and the tries kept coming. It was one of their best displays of forwards winning ball and alternate scrum halves Dean Lacey and Steven Smith supplying the backline who used their running strengths to great effect. Maybe remembering their previous match, when they had surrendered a good lead to Terenure, they kept to their task and in the end, the game proved to be a bit of a mismatch.

After 20 minutes it was 22-0 and the game looked well won. And so it proved as try after try went in. Ben Mc Brien and Lorcan Jones got hat tricks, Robert McKey and Stevie Smith got 2 each. Evan McGloughlin, Sam Toft and Ruairi Woods got well-deserved scores and George Harrison went over after a typical strong charge through the defence.

To their credit this Blackrock team (which is not a school team and reported not to have practice time together) never gave up and were unlucky not to score. But they did not have the organisation to win enough ball or to deal with the waves of Skerries attacks.

Try of the match came when hooker Darragh Coleman took one against the head in a scrum near half way. This started a move along the line and Robert McKey drew the final tackle before popping a sweet pass to Ben McBrien who duly touched town.

Conn Marry and Ciaran Frawley were unlucky not to bag tries but Ciaran and Barry McDonald, who exchanged the outhalf slot during the match, popped over 6 conversions between them. The entire pack had a very good day with Liam Price, Michael O'Connor and Ben O'Keeffe upping their game and James Power having a few of his trademark drives.