Rugby Latest w/e 8th March

Bruff in Control in the scrum V Kanturk

Heartbreak for the u15’s 

There was heartbreak for the u15’s on Sunday who despite drawing 5-5 with Ennis in their league final lost the game as Ennis scored the 1st try in the match. A long standing rule at underage rugby which Bruff have been fortunate with in the past states that if a game ends up a draw the team who score the first try/score are awarded the game. Joseph Johnstone got the only Bruff score and was unfortunate to miss the resulting conversion. The 15’s now have the cup to look forward to and will be hoping for a good run to see out the season.

Vital win for the Senior’s

Bruff and Kanturk met for the first time at Senior level on Saturday when the ‘Turks’ were the visitors to Killballyowen. A Bruff win was a must to keep promotion chances alive with only 3 games left going into this clash. Bruff would have hoped for a win but a bonus point victory it would be fair to say surpassed expectations. To say Bruff had the advantage of a stiff breeze in the opening half would be putting it lightly. It was more like a hurricane blowing from the road end down to the visitors 22.

With the gale at your backs you would expect that most of the game would be played in 1 half of the field and indeed it was. Kanturk did make a few visits to the Bruff 22 in the opening period but some clever box kicking from Tony Cahill kept ‘Turk’ on the back foot for most of the 1^st half. Bruff clocked up 26 points in the first half securing the bonus point after 39 minutes of play.

The first Bruff score came courtesy of Brian Cahill. Out half Dave O Grady made a clean line break on the Kanturk 22, drew the last defender and released to Cahill for the easy touchdown. Tony Cahill who nailed 3 first half conversions stepped up to add the extra’s. O Grady was involved again in the second try this time picking up the 5 points for himself after a defence splitting pass from Player coach Mikey Carroll.

Not content with looking on from the fullback position it was Brendan Deadys turn to get in on the act with another 5 pointer. Deady made a lovely break down the right wing with some lovely interplay between himself and rookie winger Brain Fanning. The play made its way to the Kanturk line with a series of rucks developing. Deady again got involved and finished off the score receiving a nice pop pass from scrum half Tony Cahill.

Bruff showed solid 2nd Half defence

The forth try was far less subtle then the previous efforts. No 8 Jake Considine took a short pass from Tony Cahill 5 metres out and crashed over to secure the bonus.

With the half time break upon us it was time to get the mobiles out and take to twitter to see how the other games were shaping up. To us supporters surprise every game was going our way with most of the teams just above us loosing at the mid-way point. But it was a short lived joy as all the teams turned the sores around putting in winning performances.

It was now Kanturks turn to play with the gale and try and manage the elements. They did in patches and scored 2 trys from Matt Handy and Sean Cremin either side of another Jake Considine try for Bruff.  A hard man to take down in full flight Considine’s second try was similar to his first half effort barging over from a few metres out.

31-12 the final score to Bruff and hopes still alive of reaching the promotion spots.

Team was: 1.Davie Horan 2. John Clery 3.Stephen Foster 22.Tom O Dwyer 5.Mike Cooke 6.Danny Keogh 7.Andrew White 8. Mike Carroll 9.Tony Cahill 10. Dave O Grady 11.Cian Tierney 12. Brian Cahill 13.Sean Darcy 14.Brian Fanning 15.Brendan Deady 16.Colm O Sullivan 17.Paddy Clery 18.Jake Considine 19. Mark Cosgrove 20 D Mulcahy

U16s too strong for Muskerry.

Bruff———36

Muskerry—0

In their last group game the U16s had a comfortable win against Muskerry and earned a home quarter final of the Pan Munster League against Clonakilty next Sunday with a 12.30pm kick off.

Bruff started well and applied early pressure but Muskerry defended well.The first came after good work from the pack and when the backs moved the ball winger Sean Mc Carthy ran 30 metres to touch down.

Left wing Jack Houlihan then took matters into his own hands and scored 2 tries before half time.The first of his tries was a great individual score beating a number of would be tacklers on a great run along the touch line. Outhalf Bateman converted 2 of the tries to leave Bruff leading 19–0 at half time.

Bruff totally dominated the second half adding 3 more tries,one from Jack Houlihan to complete his hat-trick and 2 from Jamie Carey. John Bateman converted one.

This was a competent display from Bruff but bigger and tougher challenges lie ahead,and they dont come much bigger or tougher than Clon who are one of the favourites for the title.

Squad, U16s Callum Winship, Jamie Carey, Michael O’Grady, John Bateman, Jason Fitzgibbon, David Carroll, Martin Carew, Liam Cunningham, Jack O’Malley, Donnacha McCarthy, Jerry O’Dea, Daniel Gleeson, Bradley Riordan, Michael O’Donovan, Joseph O’Connell, Niall Breen, James Hanly, Seamas Bulaeir, Gearoid Moynihan, Declan Kenny, Mark Hanly, Shea Dunworth , Jamie McCarthy , Jack Houlihan, Jack O Connell, Sean McCarthy & Jonathon Fitzpatrick.

Ladies Rugby

Girls and women’s rugby in Bruff Rfc: every Friday evening girls u12 u15 and u18 (= from approximately 10 and older) train from 19hr till 20hr. There are still a couple of blitzes and matches for all age grades left to train for! The women’s team is training from 20hr to 21:30hr under Mike Cahill. So spread the word and ask your sisters, cousins,  neighbours,  best girly friends, mums, aunts and wives to come along and train with Bruff! Contact Heidi @ 087 667 9783 or Claire 089 4272 402.