By Cormac O’Malley
SCHOOLS RUGBY: VINNIE MURRAY CUP SEMI-FINAL
NEWBRIDGE COLLEGE 15 KING’S HOSPITAL 0
NEWBRIDGE College moved into the final of the Vinnie Murray Cup and booked their place in the Leinster Senior Cup in the process with a gruelling victory over King’s Hospital at rain-soaked NUI Maynooth on Wednesday (25 January).
Playing with driving wind and rain in the opening half Newbridge College settled quickly and put pressure on their opponent’s line for the majority of the half. Ivan Briody crossed the line for a well worked try early on which Robbie Mullen converted. Mullen added a penalty to build a ten point advantage by the interval but facing into the turnaround coach John Newsome was concerned that maybe they had not built up enough of a lead.
“It was very tough to have the wind right down the middle of the park and having to turn round in the second half, we mightn’t have been far enough ahead, we thought it might not be enough, but we’ll take that,” he said.
Two minutes from time after a titanic struggle to keep their opponents at bay, Mullen took advantage of a knock on just inside the King’s Hospital half and he showed a great turn of pace in the slippery underfoot conditions to outpace the KH defence and Newbridge had the insurance score they needed. Newsome acknowledged the tough battle his side came through and was delighted that they took the victory to reach the Vinnie Murray Cup decider and even more importantly a place in the last sixteen of the Leinster Senior Cup.
“I said before the game we never had an easy game against KH, and it really tested the boys and tested our resolve. All credit to KH for the work they have put in, they made us work every minute for that, and the conditions didn’t help either. We don’t know what is to come next week weather wise but definitely we’ll take from that today. To be fair to the boys they have put in a huge amount of work and they have worked really hard all year and were really disappointed not to make it out of the league, you know and it was a big heartache not to finish in the top four and to have this time for match prep. So they have worked really hard considering we had a game so early after Christmas but it has paid off for them there.”
Next up for Newsome’s charges is a clash against Presentation College Bray.
“We have played them already in the league, and they are a big big physical team. We know they like to carry the ball and they like to get stuck in and the second half of that game (today), it was such a tight game, it’ll give us a feel of what to expect. I’m sure Pres were watching though and may decide to change their game plan but definitely from that point of view we can expect a good tough encounter from the Pres, they have a couple of good running backs and that and it is going to be a tough tough encounter. It’s great for us though we set a goal out once we were in the Vinnie Murray to make the last 16, and we’re there now but we know it’s not going to be easy. Pres are always a good outfit, they are very well drilled especially this year, and they had a very good league, but we’ll take on the challenge and we’ll look forward to it.”
NEWBRIDGE COLLEGE: Chris Healy, Ivan Briody, Charlie Ryan, Graham Burns, Phil O’Neil, Mark Sutton, Robbie Mullen; Jonathan Phelan, Conor Murphy, Brian O’Donnell, Stuart O’Rourke, Billy Scully, Calum O’Brien, Mark Kavanagh, Richard Snell.
KING’S HOSPITAL: Josh Dowds, Darragh Cuffe, David Butler, Ian Fitzpatrick, Vinny Hughes, Eamonn Walsh, Alex More; Ntinga Mpiko, Eoin Ryan, Adam Burke, David Duffy, Leo Janssens, James Hogan, Connor Spillane, Graham Reynolds.