The thirds travelled to Athboy on Sunday afternoon. Dundalk kicked the game off and put Athboy under pressure with a long kick forcing a knock on. Dundalk’s first scrum of the day set the tone for the scrums for the rest of the day as they forced Athboy back and were able to provide fast ball from the scrum. Dundalk kept piling on the pressure with great runs by centres Mike Doyle and Aaron Mulligan to create space for Gerry Lawless on the wing who caused problems for the Athboy back three.
Dundalk allowed the Athboy forwards to come into the game by giving away silly penalties allowing them to kick for touch on a few occasions. Athboy started to come into it and a lapse in concentration with a high kick resulted in them getting the first try of the day, which they were unable to convert.
Dundalk again from the kick off forced another knock on and from the resulting scrum a switch pass from Brian Tansey to Doyle opened up the Athboy defence with Doyle bumping two Athboy players to release Lawless into the corner for Dundalk’s first try.
As the game went on Dundalk’s pack put some serious pressure on the Athboy scrum with great scrummaging from Andrew Holmes, John Kerr and Steven Smyth. A pick and go from Chris Brady at the base of the scrum put Athboy under pressure, and from the resulting ruck Doyle again bounced another two players out of his away for Cathal Myles to pass to Lawless who skipped past three Athboy defenders for his second try of the day under the posts.
An Athboy lineout late in the first half saw McCabe steal the Athboy ball and allowed Dundalk to attack once again and after a few picks from the back of the ruck saw Brady stroll underneath the posts to leave the score 19-13 to Dundalk at half time.
The second half started off strong with once again the Dundalk forwards putting immense pressure on the Athboy back with numerous lineout steals from Kennedy, allowing the backs to stretch their legs and attack Athboy!
Mid way through the second half it started to get scrappy with both sides conceding a number of penalties.A Dundalk lineout saw Gavin Mullen, Myles and Tansey combine to open pull off a training pitch move to release Pearse Campbell into space and dance pass four Athboy defenders to score a try, unfortunately the referee deemed it held up.
Dundalk’s heads started to drop and started to allow Athboy come back into the game, the saving grace was some magnificent tackling by French student Vincent who put his body on the line resulting in Athboy going nowhere! With a minute to go and Dundalk feeling the effects of the big hits going in a moment of tiredness saw Athboy get a try, which thankfully were unable to convert and the game finished 19-18 to Dundalk.
Everyone played well with the pack performing well in the scrums and lineouts and the backs moving the ball well and tackling hard in defence!
1) A Holmes 2) J Kerr 3) S Smyth 4) T Thornton 5) C McCabe 6) G Mullen 7) Vincent 8) C Brady 9) C Myles(c) 10) B Tansey 11) B Callan 12) M Doyle 13) A Mulligan 14) G Lawless 15) G O Hagan 16) N Kerley 17) N Brown 18) A Kennedy
