Match Report: 3XV vs Stillorgan-Rathfarnham
Bective Rangers FC 45 - 21 Stillorgan-Rathfarnham RFC
In the final home league match of the season, the 3XV put on an excellent display of rugby to gain the upper hand on SRRFC under Friday night lights in Donnybrook last week. The match was refixed following the postponement 2 weeks prior due to heavy snow. Both sides were out of contention for the playoff spots, but pride, final table positions and bragging rights were on the line.
Early Bective pressure lead to the game’s opening score; repeated hammering of the SRRFC line from the Bective pack produced an offside penalty and out half Henry Carroll duly obliged, with a sweet strike to get the ball rolling, 3-0 after 7 mins. 6 mins later, SRRFC again strayed offside and with Bective gaining territory from the kick, the pack mauled from the lineout, making a 20 yard gain. This provided an excellent platform for the backs to spin it wide and when the ball came to outside centre Luis Santana, he found a soft outside shoulder and fooled the fullback with an excellent dummy to dot down for the game’s first try, Carroll adding the extras. 10-0 Bective on the 15 minute mark.
Almost immediately Bective struck again. Hard carries in the midfield from centres Santana and Matt Sheppard gave Bective massive yardage, a few more forward carries eventually battered the SRRFC defence allowing scrum half Nikolai Foster to spin the ball fast and wide to Carroll who found Captain and fullback Stephen Fox on an arcing run, scoring Bective’s second try. Carroll was on fire off the tee as he made it 17-0 after 18 mins.
SRRFC fought back, in large part thanks to Bective’s issues gathering restarts and some sloppy ruck penalties. SRRFC gained territory and scored in the corner for their first points, a superb touchline conversion making it 17-7. But the Bective heads were quickly reconfigured and with the pack again providing the platform, Foster and Carroll were able to fire beautiful passes across the backline finding Santana who found another outside shoulder to canter in for a brace of tries. Carroll nailed the kick to make it 24-7 after half an hour. Shortly afterwards history repeated itself, with Santana throwing a dummy with a 3v1 available. While the SRRFC fullback manage to steal his boot, Santana didn’t break stride and scored his hat trick try under the sticks, 31-7 on 33 mins.
Bective issues at the restart continued and allowed SRRFC to make it 31-14 going in to HT, but just before the whistle, Bective struck. The forwards, tired of the backs making hay with their work, decided it was their turn. SRRFC hands in the ruck allowed Carroll to kick Bective deep into the opposition ‘22. The lineout, lead by Ed O’Sullivan & Charlie Hughes was outstanding all evening. The ball was secured and Bective rumbled an unstoppable maul towards the line. SRRFC took down the maul and with penalty advantage, second row
Adam “Gibbons” Murphy barrelled over from close range. Sharpshooter Carroll nailed the kick for 38-14, SRRFC nabbing another easy try before the whistle
Halftime score was 38-19. It should be noted that the referee made an honest error in tracking the score in the first half and he had it as 31-26 at HT. The rest of this report will use the actual score rather than the official final score (at the top of the article), following the referee’s score tracking errors. The referee corrected the score somewhat at FT.
After the break, Bective came storming out of the blocks and concerted pressure lead to another penalty. With the referee saying there was only 5 points in it (in reality it was 19) Captain Fox pointed to the sticks and Carroll made it 41-19 (34-26 by the ref). The rest of the game was a slog from both sides, with some excellent play but Bective dropped the ball with the line begging on two occasions which would’ve killed the match as a contest. That said, Bective did have the final say as flanker Ed O’Sullivan powered over after concerted pressure on the SRRFC line. Carroll made it 48-19 (41-26 by the referee) with a perfect 7/7 kicks at goal.
Unfortunately SRRFC succumbed to injuries and were down to 13 men, the referee making the correct call in ending the match officially but both sides playing on unofficially, 13 men vs 13 men. In the unofficial period Bective managed two more tries from replacement back and token Kiwi, Anthony McLeod and Man of the Match Henry Carroll. The game was called after this, a successful evening at the office. The players very kindly presented coaches Col Bathe, Shane Comer and coach/captain Stephen Fox with tokens of their gratitude for all the work put in this season from the management team.
The 3XV have made Donnybrook a very difficult place to visit this season and the win brought us up to 3rd in the league table ahead of this weekend’s final round of matches. We are away to table toppers St Mary’s on Saturday March 23rd, as we continue our great rivalry from the last few seasons. This serves as the final match before the O’Connor Cup kicks off, our first round away to BGF Ravens on Saturday March 30th although please note this date may change.
FT score:
Bective 46-21 SRRFC (official)
Bective 48 -19 SRRFC (actual)
Bective 60-19 SRRFC (unofficial)
Scorers: Luis Santana (3 tries), Stephen Fox (1 try), Adam “Gibbons” Murphy (1 try), Ed O’Sullivan (1 try), Henry Carroll (5 cons, 2 pens)
15. Stephen Fox (C) 14. Sam Briggs 13. Luis Santana 12. Matt Sheppard 11. Emmet Geraghty 10. Henry Carroll 9. Nikolai Foster; 1. Soloman Babajide 2. Ed Perrier 3. Eoin Bradley 4. Gustavo Ludwig 5. Adam Murphy 6. Charlie Hughes 7. Ed O’Sullivan 8. Dave O’Mahony
Bomb squad: 16. Eoin McIntyre 17. Gav Walsh 18.Simon Besanson 19. Anthony McLeod 20. John Leahy 21. Nial O’Brien 22. Mark Gibbons
