Thursday, 14th December 2017


sport@eastcorkjournal.ie East Cork Rugby Notes


Frustrating Day At The Office For Midleton RFC Midleton 12


and a mistake in midfield on the 55th


Bruff 19 MIDLETON will have


to make more use of their possession at home in these crucial games at


the bot-


tom end of AIL Div 2C, in a match where they held about 80% possession, yet failed to score any try in a game where they were the dominant side. Midleton made a few key


mistakes in this game gifting their Munster rivals some early Christmas presents and the first mistake came after just two minutes when a knock on gave the visitors a scrum five meters out and Bruff punished Midleton seconds later when inside centre Jack O’Grady got in for the try. To be honest for the re-


maining 37 minutes of the first half Midleton owned the ball and forced a pen- alty on the 27th


minute and


Stuart Lee from 40 meters out slotted ball between the posts. Just


two minutes later


and deep inside the Bruff ‘22’ Midleton again forced a penalty and Lee had no problem converting, giving the home side the lead and that’s the way it remained until half time. Midleton came out with


all guns blazing in the sec- ond half and Stuart Lee had his third penalty success just 60 seconds into the half, but from here on in Mid- leton just couldn’t seem to get any real breakthroughs


minute allowed


O’Grady to kick and run and touch down for his second try which was con- verted by his brother Dave O’Grady regaining the lead for Bruff. The


their league


Stuart Lee four penalties. Scorers for Bruff: Jack


O’Grady two tries, John Hogan try, Dave O’Grady two conversions. MIDLETON: K Brierly,


visitors extended even further


ten minutes later when John Hogan got in around the back of the Midleton de- fence and David O’Grady converted to extend the lead to ten points. Lee was on target again


for Midleton with twelve minutes to go bringing the magical seven points be- tween the sides and all credit to Midleton as they camped in the Bruff half for the last six minutes of the game, but the crucial pass or break just wouldn’t come and in the end a losing bonus point was all they got. Scorers for Midleton:


D O’Sullivan, T Keaveney, D Broderick, J Gardiner, C Murphy, A Ware, M Cronin, R Smyth, S Lee, R O’Ma- hony, R Hogan, D Murray, J Deady, M Korterik. Replacement: A McCar-


thy for J Gardiner (35) BRUFF: D Horan, J Ho-


gan, B Keogh, S Hartigan, T O’Dwyer,


J Clery, M


Collins, D Keogh, T Ca- hill, D O’Grady, C Ryan, J O’Grady, B Fanning, S Dar- cy, G Whelan. Replacements: Thomas


O’Dwyer for S Hartigan (37) C Clifford for T Cahill (47) Referee: Marcus Casey


(IRFU) MIDLETON’S coach Tom Mulcahy was utterly


frustrated with his sides de- feat at home last Saturday in Towns Park in their very im- portant bottom of the AIL Div2 game. He said “How we didn’t


come off the field at half time with at least three tries, it was so frustrating when I look back at the opening 30 minutes we did everything so well except the final pass and that was just the way it went all day last Saturday, but still there was a lot of positives on the day, but I still can’t believe that we lost that match. We can only move on now and get train- ing hard throughout Christ- mas with Saturday sessions and bring our ‘A’ game to Malahide in January”. The AIL Div 2C league is


so tight at the moment a win can propel a team four plac- es, but Midleton sit 2nd


from


the bottom at the moment, something


that Mulcahy


can’t think about that only concentrate on the games ahead he said “We


train


tonight and Thursday and throughout the holiday and our only focus is Malahide and we know that it is half time in the league and there are plenty more games to go yet, so we have to focus on what we can do to improve and we are getting better, but we can’t switch off like we did in periods last Sat- urday. This team is just too good to be where they are and in all my years in rug- by last Saturday’s dressing room was the most down and out one I have ever been into and my players were just


devastated after the


game and they will learn a lot from that I hope, but we have to get past these ‘Mor- al Victories’ with a bonus point, we have to get rid of the ‘Poor Midleton’ factor and kick on now with more


clinical performances”. Definitely the thought of going down is out of


the


question for the Midleton coach “Look, we just can’t buy a win at the moment, but these boys are too good for that to last and that will change. We have


players available at the mo- ment and we will work hard over the Christmas and start to put some wrongs, right. We are in a horrible place at


the moment and when


things are going against you every mistake just com- pounds the misery, but we have a great group of play- ers and I am confident that we will bounce back very soon and there are massive positives to take from last Saturdays match especially in the set plays and in par- ticular in the line out, so if we can tidy up our open play we will be fine”.


all our


75


• Daniel Murray Midleton RFC leading the charge during the Ulster Bank AIL Div III game V Bruff RFC


• Steam rises from the pack during the Ulster Bank AIL Div III game Midleton RFC V Bruff RFC


• Daniel Murray Midleton RFC is grounded by Tony Cahill Bruff RFC during the Ulster Bank AIL Div III game


@eastcorkjournal / #eastcorkjournal eastcorkjournal


• Denis Broderick Midleton RFC under pressure during the Ulster Bank AIL Div III game V Bruff RFC


Tel: 021 463 8000 • Email: sport@eastcorkjournal.ie • Web: www.eastcorkjournal.ie


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