Ardscoil Rís 45
Castletroy College 17
John Keogh reports from Thomond Park
ARDSCOIL RÍS ARE into the Munster Schools Senior Cup semi-finals after a stunning second-half performance saw them beat Castletroy 45-17 at Thomond Park.
They will take on Cork’s CBC in the final four in the week commencing on 4 March.
Ardscoil scored six second-half tries to earn their place in this season’s semi-finals after Castletroy had led 10-7 at half time of their quarter-final clash.
Castletroy bossed the game in the early stages and were rewarded for their dominance when scrum-half Michael O’Hanrahan powered over from close range. Sean Madden converted to give Castletroy a 7-0 lead after 10 minutes.
Madden stretched the lead to 10 points soon after with a penalty after another period of pressure where Kieran O’Shea was close to scoring their second try.
Ardscoil were struggling to get any foothold in the contest in the opening half but that all changed on the stroke of half time when John Moloney’s initial break pierced the Castletroy defence.
Daniel Okeke then took Moloney’s offload to barrel through four Castletroy tackles to score a sensational try from the 10-metre line. Alex O’Halloran added the extras to cut Castletroy’s lead to three points at half time.
Okeke’s try clearly gave Ardscoil confidence going into the second half and they took the lead through a superb Killian Dineen try that O’Halloran converted.
From then on, it was all Ardscoil and they blitzed their way to victory with Lochlainn O’Keeffe (2), James Horrigan (2) and John Salmon tries seeing off the Castletroy challenge.
Castletroy got the final score of the game through Cian White but it was little consolation as Ardscoil eased into the semi-finals.
Scorers:
Ardscoil Rís:
Tries: Lochlainn O’Keeffe (2), James Horrigan (2), Daniel Okeke, Killian Dineen, John Salmon
Conversions: Alex O’Halloran (4/5), John Maloney (1/2)
Castletroy College:
Tries: Michael O’Hanrahan, Cian White
Penalties: Sean Madden (1/1)
Conversions: Sean Madden (1/1), Michael O’Hanrahan (1/1).
ARDSCOIL RÍS: Lochlainn O’Keeffe; Eoghan Collins, Killian Dineen (Rory Desmond ’65), Alex O’Halloran (Scott Fitzgerald ’68), John Salmon; John Maloney, Ian Leonard (Cian Maloney ’64); Alex Long (Josh Moore ’68), James Whyte (Darragh Dineen ’60), Oskar Czyszczon (Kevin Danaher ’68), Will O’Callaghan (C) James Horrigan (Cian O’Reilly ’69), Stephen Cleary (Gearoid Power ’62), Jack Ward Murphy, Daniel Okeke.
CASTLETROY COLLEGE: Andrew Shanahan; Louis Cunneen (Paul Ross ’56), Sam Hanrahan, Jason Aylward, James Lammond; Sean Madden (Evan O’Halloran ’42), Michael O’Hanrahan; Jason McCormack (Sam Den Dikken ’58), Kieran O’Shea (Dean McGinn ’65), Robert Magill, Cillian Toland, John Moloney, Sean Quirke (Ronan Kiely ’56), Cian White, Dylan McMahon (Jamie McNamara ’14).
Referee: Eoghan Cross (MAR)
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