Nenagh Ormond U18.5 continued their Pan Munster Plate competition campaign with an away match in Glanmire against local side Old Christians. After round one disappointment when the team lost 22-10 at home to Midleton it was important to get back into the running in the group in this fixture. Against Midleton we put in a poor team performance with a lot of unforced errors and poor discipline. This included a yellow card when we had fought back from 14-5 down at half time to 14-10 with 10 minutes to go, only to concede a poor try after a missed tackle when trying to run out from our own 22 in the last minute of the game. We followed this game with a better performance away to Old Crescent in the quarter final of the North Munster league, winning 22-10 with tries from Mikey Morgan, Tristan Madden and Dylan Schweitnitz.

On to this week and the weather conditions in Cork were very challenging with a very strong wind in our favour in the first half and the game was scrappy on the soft pitch. It remained scoreless until the 24th minute when a dropped ball by the home team backs was hacked forward by Mason Cawley and he won the race to touch down for a badly needed score. The conversion by Darragh Gleeson was good to give us a 7-0 lead but with the massive wind in our backs it was clear more would be needed. On 30 minutes some good counter rucking by the Nenagh forwards allowed a turnover and Fionn O’Meara broke a tackle to sprint away to score under the posts, Darragh’s conversion left the score line 14-0 with half time approaching. With the clock running down a midfield penalty and good kick to the corner saw a line out awarde. A pre planned move saw Jack Meagher score wide out, the difficult conversion was just wide to leave the score 19-0 at half time. Facing the massive wind it was going to be a battle in the second half, as kicking was not going to be an option into the wind. Christians kicked off and were on the attack but a good tackle 5 metres from our line save a break away by Jack O Callaghan, Mason and Diarmuid Coleman to free Ryan Imhoff on the left wing. He sprinted clear into the opposition 22 and linked with Darragh Gleeson who stepped inside the covering winger to score under the posts. He converted the fantastic team try which started from almost our own line. The game was scrappy at times as the rain joined the wind but pleasingly the Nenagh boys defence held out and after 22 minutes Mason picked off a pass in midfield to race away for another converted try to leave the score 33-0 to Nenagh. With only 17 players available on the day it was a good effort by the boys and Jack Meagher, Sean Tormey and Diarmuid Coleman had very good games. The returning Jack O’Callaghan performed very strongly in the 12 position. It was the first time the team had performed well both as a team and on both sides of the ball since the start of the season and with 3 fixtures in a row coming up over the next 3 weekends, hopefully the work being done in training will pay off. Best wishes to the dancing Dan Kenneally who injured his ankle in the dying moments and hopefully will be back in action soon.

Dylan Schweitnitz, Dyan Crowe, Luke O’Callaghan, Cillian Ryan, Jess Robbins, Jack Meagher, Sam Lancaster, Fionn O’Meara, Cathan Gaffney, Ryan Imhoff, Diarmuid Coleman, Jack O’Callaghan , Mason Cawley, Sean Tormey, Darragh Gleeson, Dan Keneally, Mikey Morgan.