By Killian McCarthy
After six defeats on the spin, with little to play for but pride, and with the end of the season looming large, hoisting the motivation levels high enough to contest – let alone win – an AIL game is commendable in itself.
Thankfully, a local derby gets the dander up like little else, particularly when Shannon are ‘welcomed’ to Greenfields. Throw in plenty of pride in the jersey, a vociferous crowd, and toss the formbook out the window and you have a contest that dwarfs the professional fare served up in Thomond Park.
The Cookies set the tone early on, mixing the physical graft up front with plenty of guile in the back division. As early as the ninth minute a kickable 3-pointer was eschewed in favour of dinking the ball into the corner. It came to nought but the gauntlet had been thrown down.
After Shannon scrum half Rob Guerin had missed a penalty at the clubhouse end, the home side came roaring back. A blistering Mark Doyle break brought play over halfway and his inside pass found Seán Duggan, only for the rangy second row to unluckily spill the ball.
Winning in the territory stakes, it seemed a matter of time before Munsters made hay on the scoreboard. Step forward Darragh O’Neill in the 19th minute to provide a moment of individual brilliance. The diminutive winger stepped in to act as scrum half at an innocuous looking ruck in midfield. Spotting half a gap at the side of the ruck he darted into open country and turned on the afterburners to leave two would-be Shannon tacklers in his wake and dot down to the left of the posts.
Shane O’Leary made no mistake with his conversion attempt and Munsters were up and running.
10 minutes later Munsters had turned down two more kickable penalties but finding their efforts thwarted they settled for the shot at goal at the third time of asking. Shane O’Leary added to his burgeoning reputation from the kicking tee to leave his side 10 points to the good and he repeated the dose in first half injury time to leave the scoreboard reading Young Munster 13 Shannon 0 at the short whistle. Continue reading →
has joined up with the Canadian U20 Rugby Squad, which is playing in the IRB Junior World Trophy competition. He is eligible as his Mum was born in Canada.
