Thurles travelled to Mallow this Sunday in round 8 of the Munster Junior 1 league in an attempt to beat Mallow for the first time since their return to this league two years ago. 

Thurles having won the toss received kick off with the benefit of the hill and breeze for the first half. Both Thurles and Mallow were almost seven weeks without a fixture due to weather disruption last weekend and the long break over Christmas in the league. That most definitely showed with thevery first exchanges whilst Thurles comfortably gathered the kick off but two scuffed clearance kicks despite the wind and hill advantage led to immediate pressure in the Thurles half. This was unfortunately to be a feature of the game with some poor tactical kicking by the Thurles backs all day.

Within five minutes Thurles laid siege to the Mallow line with forwards trying to pummel their way over before feeding the Thurles backs with numbers left. The pass wasn’t given by fly half James Maher who chose to go for the line himself just getting tackled short, isolated and easily turned over. This was one of many missed scoring opportunities in the first half. Thurles however were holding their own and looked most likely to score before Mallow on a rare visit to the Thurles half fashioned a well worked score bouncing back on the blind side before good hands by their backs and some poor reads and weak defensive effort by Thurles put them in for their first try after just fourteen minutes. Thurles responded almost immediately and had a penalty awarded centrally and just shy of the Mallow ten metre line. Jack Flanagan slotting it with ease to make the score 5 – 3 in favour of Mallow. At this point of the game one could not see this being the last scoreby Thurles on the day as they had several visits to the Mallow twenty-two in the first half only to be outdone by inaccuracy, lack of composure or just bad decision making. Thurles lineout struggled all day and when it needed to function when in the red zone. The game limped to half time in a stop start fashion suiting the big powerful Mallow pack and it ended 5 – 3 with Thurles failing to inject sufficient urgency and continuity which in brief glimpses, showed how to unpick a big physical opposition. 

The teams turned over for the second half with Thurles very much still in this game and the hill and breeze not as big a factor as originally expected. The turning point came in a period just 15 minutes into the second half – John Shaw who was struggling at loosehead and had already conceded a couple of penalties was extremely harshly yellow carded for a scrum offence in scrum on the halfway. One would wonder whether referee had been watching Luc Ramos influence and end the contest in the Aviva on the Saturday night with a similarly harsh call on the Bath prop for the very same offence, a call that had a few scratched heads on thecommentary team there and similarly in Mallow. Thurles conceded a try after just 3 minutes of the yellow card period despite some committed and brave defence. Most frustratingly Thurles conceded another try almost immediately after the first when despite a good kick off contest the Mallow second row was allowed to catch and run sixty metres to the Thurles twenty-two. With Mallow flooding through Thurles never recovered defensively, and a cross field kick found the Mallow winger out wide on penalty advantage to score Mallow’s third try. Thurles battled hard and managed to stem the flood of scores and fire a couple of shots of their own – A couple of powerful carries by Sonny Dwyer led to line breaks, but Thurles inevitably handed easy outs to the home team by failing to win their own lineout in the Mallow twenty-two. Thurles also spilled ball harmlessly when gaining hard-earnedpossession through inaccurate and forced passing as well as attempting offloads which were never on.

Thurles having regained full fifteen on the field, freshened the team by introducing a number of substitutes, but never really threatened the Mallow line for the rest of the game. Mallow sensing blood were hunting for the bonus point win that would pull them level with Thurles in 12th position in the league. But Thurles to their credit put in a huge defensive set for the last eight minutes, despite losing Sam Quinlan to another yellow card for another extremely harsh call in what seemed like a fair lineout contest, with both payers getting hands on the ball. Final score 19 – 3 in favour of Mallow.

Thurles will face a flying Kanturk side next weekend in another important home game, with just five league games remaining, and in a very congested bottom half of the league,every game from here on in is critical. Thurles will need to brush off the cobwebs of their long layoff and try and get back on track for a vital game next weekend. On a positive note Thurles will have heartened by the return Peter Kinane who got through a god eighty minutes at second row after a long lay off due to injury.

Thurles lined out as follows: 

John Shaw, Shane Nugent, Stephen Kirwan, Donnacha Ryan, Mark Cummins, Sam Quinlan, Ciaran Ryan, Seamus Holohan, James Maher, Sonny Dwyer, James O’Meara, Luke Fogarty, Jack Flanagan, Matty Kelly,

Subs: James Butler (for S Kirwan), Ciaran Murphy (for Shane Nugent), Brandon Meaney(for John Shaw) Dan Lanigan Ryan(for Donnacha Ryan), Ricardo Prandi (for James Maher) Brian O’ Connell (for Mark Cummins).