UCD UNDER 20 B              15                0       Newbridge RFC

The 20 B’s qualified for the league final (date & venue TBC) thanks to a hard fought victory over an impressive Newbridge outfit last Sunday afternoon. When the teams met earlier in the season Collidge won a very close affair (20 pts to 17) so the squad knew the semi final was going to be a very tough encounter.  

Playing into the wind in the first half UCD got off to a perfect start when after five minutes James Finnegan made a superb run up the left hand touchline and offloaded to full back Joe Mackenzie who touched down for the first points of the afternoon. Carrying on from where he left off in the pre- match warm up Daniel Clifford missed the difficult conversion.

Newbridge shaded the territorial battle as they were able to use the strong wind to pin Collidge in the bottom left hand corner thanks to some impressive kicking from their out half & full back. Collidge’s set piece was working well where the work of Conal Cremin, Sean Tevlin & Eoin Daly out of touch regularly secured possession and the scrum was also strong with props Mike O’Sullivan & Kieran Finlayson both working hard. When Collidge needed to defend the backrow of Maurice Deasy, Conor Farrell and James McAlister led the way and were ably supported by the centre pairing of Neal Murphy & David Fahy. Two missed penalties (it was a very difficult wind to kick in) from Newbridge allowed UCD off the hook and despite some promising attacks -one in particular where a great run by winger John Conroy nearly led to a second Collidge try – the half time score remained at five nil. It was clear that Collidge needed to improve their ball retention in the second half if they were going to advance to the league final.

Collidge started the second half slowly but thanks to the strong wind they were able to clear play down into the Newbridge twenty two. The UCD scrum was starting to get on top and scrum half Shane O’Meara was looking dangerous around the fringes. Collidge were starting to build some passages of play and you could sense the second try coming, however Newbridge were always looking dangerous especially their impressive full back who was monitored closely by James McAlister and then by Tim Gleeson. The second try nearly came after a passage of play that in the Newbridge twenty two but Conor Farrell was penalised for a double movement and prop O’Sullivan was later judged to have knocked on as he picked and went over the Newbridge line.   

The second try eventually came when Shane O’Meara went over from close range, out wide on the left and this was brilliantly converted by Daniel Clifford. This gave Collidge some breathing space on the scoreboard and Collidge started to play more of the rugby. Another penalty followed for UCD and the lead had stretched out to fifteen points. With Kieran Finlayson having been replaced by Cormac Kavanagh the UCD scrum continued its dominance and should have led to a third try for UCD but the scoring pass was judged to have gone forward.

Despite what was at stake and the effort both teams put in the match was played in a very good spirit and I think both sets of supporters enjoyed the match. 

Collidge now play Bective Rangers in the final and once we have confirmation of the venue & kick off time we will let everyone know.

Thanks to all those who turned out in support on Sunday, and especially to all the non playing squad members who came down to watch & lend a hand. We will need as much support as possible for the final so please spread the word.

Thanks again to Dr Tom Field, Sarah Gleeson and Pete Herangi for their efforts on Sunday. 

Please click on images below to start slideshow

News