Connacht Junior Plate

Creggs 2nd XV 12 – Castlebar 1st XV 17

The game in front of the large crowd in Ballina on Sunday did not turn out as expected. Castlebar 1st team finished in the top 4 of the J1A league with Creggs 2nd team fighting relegation from J1B. But someone forgot to tell Creggs that version and they were very unlucky to lose this final.

From the KO Castlebar were shocked that Creggs 2nd had a realy strong athletic side with youth throughout and were not in awe playing at the higher level. It took Castlebar 13 minutes to score and that 5 points would be their only score in the first half. Creggs pack pushed hard in attack and only a few handling errors stopped the scoring on a number of occasions. What looked like a certain try minutes before half time saw Creggs spin the ball along the back line where Mike Farrell was certain of a try only to be striped of the ball in a goal-line tackle. It took right up the last move of the break where a Creggs attack under the post was fouled and a kick option taken to go in at half time 5 -3 behind with the Callum Fahey penalty.

After the break again Creggs surprised the Castlebar team and their sideline team by attacking into the wind and winning a penalty on their 22 after only a minute. Fahey had his kicking boots on and slotted another 3 points to push Creggs ahead. Again the next score came to Creggs with a similar penalty leaving Fahey to score, pushing the lead out to 9-5. Castlebar threw everything at Creggs and were lucky not to score under the posts. Their Captain got involved in some afters at the breakdown and Creggs won a relieving penalty.

The down turn happened shortly afterwards where a Tuam kick ahead was not managed by the Creggs backline and Mark Kilcommons was beaten to the chase leading to Castlebar’s second try putting them 10-9 ahead on 52 minutes. Creggs would not lie down and won a penalty on their 10. Kicked to touch where the pack took on a maul after the lineout and were stopped on the line giving them another kickable penalty. Fahey kicked his 4th penalty to put Creggs 12-10 up on 60 minutes. With 5 minutes left Castlebar eventually scored a try under the post bring the final score to 17-12.

Creggs are so proud top have two senior mens teams in finals on the same day which was history breaking for the club and to have our Senior Seconds making the final of the Senior 1st Competition.

Team photo supplied by Steve Fahey Foxshots77