St Tiernan’s Crossmolina 0 Roscommon Community College 19

Roscommon Community College had a decisive victory in their Connacht Junior Emerging Cup pool match in atrocious conditions at Ballina against St Tiernan’s College Crossmolina on Wednesday, January 13. RCC were positive from the start and took the game adventurously to Tiernan’s despite the conditions. Impressive handling by Aaron Hannon, Dylan Geraghty and Erik Matik took play deep inside the Tiernan’s 22 and RCC’s backline looked threatening with Jack Donnelly and Conor Lavin to the fore. RCC got the early breakthrough when Hannon went over from close range for a try which was expertly converted by Daire Keenan for a 7-0 lead.
RCC continued to dominate and a strong run by Oisin Campbell should have yielded another try but he was held up short. The pressure was kept up and strong bursts by Simon Leonard and Luca Stratford saw them almost score but Conor Lavin made no mistake left of the posts close to halftime when he dotted down for a try which was again converted by Keenan. The halftime score was RCC 14, Tiernan’s 0.
With worsening conditions came difficult handling and RCC had a number of strong runs from debutant Diarmuid Treacy and prop Erik Matik. A five metre scrum saw a nice backline move finished off by full back Gareth Delaney who went over for a try. Keenan hit the post with the conversion. The game petered out somewhat after this as it became almost impossible to play any creative rugby. Final score: St Tiernan’s 0, RCC 19.

RCC: Gareth Delaney, Sean Trundle, Conor Lavin, Jack Donnelly, Diarmuid Treacy, Daire Keenan, Eoghan Farrell, Oisin Campbell, Simon Leonard, Aaron Hannon, Dylan Geraghty (c), Keelan Morris, Erik Matik, Adam Bracken, Luca Stratford.
Subs: Cormac Lavin, Keelan Gallagher, Erik Horvath, Diarmuid Quinn, Evan Croghan, Shane Donoghue, Brandon Maguire