Weekend Notes from Thurles Rugby Club

Thurles Rugby bow out of Junior Cup

UCC 45 Thurles 5.

Thurles made the long trip to the pleasant surroundings of the Mardyke Arena last Thursday night for a Junior Cup last sixteen encounter with the UCC Junior 1 team. This was always going to be a tough assignment for Thurles coming just four days after a physical league encounter with Kilfeacle and playing the second team of a club whose first team is plying its trade in Division 1b of the All Ireland League and undoubtedly bolstered with players who have seen game time at that level.

The opening exchanges of the game were reasonably well matched but after some high tempo sustained attacks UCC worked an overload to the right of the Thurles defence and opened the scoring on five minutes with a well worked try, 5 – 0 to UCC. Thurles had been defending well but the speed of recycle from the UCC side eventually wore down some brave Thurles defence, this was to be a feature the game for most of the remaining 75 minutes. Thurles got into the game themselves shortly after conceding with an excellent kick from Eamonn Connolly forced a 50-22 and gained good field position for Thurles – a good lineout and rolling maul ensued only for Thurles to be penalised for ‘truck and trailer’ in the maul. UCC with possession back, kicked deep into the Thurles half – a good rolling maul had Thurles back peddling and a few phases and a couple of missed Thurles tackles later, UCC had registered their second try to make it 10 – 0 after 11 minutes. With 23 minutes on the clock UCC again crossed the Thurles line after some relentless phase play to register their third try. Thurles were not about throw in the towel and arguably registered one of the best scores of the encounter on 30 minutes when good handling by Eoghan O’Dwyer and Luke Fogarty found Eamonn Connolly wide on the right to get in for what was to Thurles’s only try of the night. This unfortunately was as good it got for Thurles. UCC responded immediately. A poor Thurles kick chase after an exit from the restart, led to a UCC counter attack with a kick ahead by their winger who recovered the ball and with a pass out of contact left an easy run in for their centre on 35 minutes. A few minutes later Thurles with some good possession of their own made a poor choice going blind and were penalised for not releasing at an under-resourced ruck. UCC kicked to 5 metres from an ensuing rolling maul crossed easily for their fourth try which was also converted to leave the score 29-5. With half time approaching UCC further stretched their lead again from a rolling maul from a lineout resulting from a Thurles being penalised in a scrum. A rare penalty to Thurles just before half time led to good lineout position in the UCC 22. However, a knock on in the ensuing rolling maul by Thurles resulted in the referee blowing for half time with the score 36 – 5.

This match was over by half time as a contest but a rampant and energetic student team could have made things a lot more uncomfortable for the Thurles lads if it wasn’t for some stiff resolve shown by the  them to limit the extent of the damage already done. The second half saw UCC add two further tries and despite some field position and opportunities for Thurles, they were unable to add to their total. The half was characterised by brave and resolute Thurles defence right to the end, limiting UCC to just an additional two scores. Thurles rolled on a number of subs in the second half utilising their full bench to rest some tiring bodies. No shame in this defeat to very strong opposition. With this fixture fulfilled and out of the way, bigger and more important games lie ahead in the next couple of weeks for our first and second teams.

Taking the field for Thurles were 1. Gerry McCormick, 2. Shane Nugent, 3. John Shaw, 4 . Luke Kelly, 5. Colin Nolan, 6. Conor Moloney, 7. Bryan O’Connell, 8. Ciaran Ryan, 9. Seamie Holohan, 10. Eamonn Connolly, 11 Luke Fogarty, 12 Eoghan Dwyer, 13. Sonny Dwyer, 14. Cathal Hayes 15. Conor O’Hagan – Subs Dan Lee(for McCormick), Donnacha Ryan(for Kelly), Matthew Kelly(for Fogarty), Nate Morehu(for Connolly), Richie Holohan (for Shaw)

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The Thurles – Carrick U18 Girls advance to Munster Cup Semi-Final following a 22-14 win at Loughtagalla on Saturday over Killarney Girls Rugby

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It was tough, physical encounter but the Thurles Carrick U16 Girls ran out 0-22 winners over a very strong Kanturk side. The game was played in tough conditions in North Cork club, making the victory even more impressive

This weeks winner of the Split the Bucket “Super Split” Draw and €2,000 wasCatriona Quigley

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The Thurles Minis Rugby Players took part in the St Patricks Day Parade

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Thurles Rugby Club Mini Rugby Players

The Thurles Minis range from U7 to U12s and the teams are mixed made up of girls and boys, the kids play a blitz every second week all over the county and have great fun participating in a very friendly and fun environment. The Thurles theme is the Rugby World Cup which is on in September & October. This year hopefully Ireland can go far in the tournament. For past present future we are looking closer to home to our home grown players who represented Ireland U20s ,Our Past player Frankie Roche won an U19 world cup in France which was an amazing achievement. The club wished Present player Brian Gleeson the best of luck to in Sunday's U20 grand slam decider against England in Cork, which of course we now know that they won. Our minis are the Future, they hopefully will go on to do great things on the rugby field in the future. For anyone who would like to try out Rugby we train every Saturday from 12-1:30 all kids are very  welcome. We are very excited about our Give it Try for girls which commences in April. .     More info on our Social media.

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Tom Stapleton, Tommy Stapleton and Tomás Loughnane accepted the award for Best Sports Club on behalf of Thurles Rugby Club, in this year’s St Patricks Parade