Connacht Review September 10th, 2014 Rob OLBC Monivea You can tell a lot from an opening weekend in most leagues and Connacht is no different. While our preview underlined the unpredictability in the division heading into the campaign, just one weekend of action has helped us make a bit more sense of things. Results Connacht Junior League Division 1a Westport 3, Connemara 14 Ballina 22, Ballinasloe 21 Galwegians 14, Corinthians 35 OLBC 11, Monivea 33 First off, Corinthians look impressive. Based on the talent they have recruited, the emerging young players that are still there from last year and a clear focus on pushing the senior squad, their Junior squad look like an unstoppable force as far as the league title is concerned after their opening day bonus point win at Galwegians. The sky blues would have hoped to challenge their city rivals at this level this season to mark their return to the Junior ranks but Sunday’s 35-14 loss was a dreadful opening effort. Bar an early try and a second half lapse in concentration from the Corinthians defence Galwegians offered nothing and to make matters worse, ill discipline set in with two yellow cards and a red during the game. Monivea looking Sharp OLBC could be in some of bother judging by Sunday’s 33-11 loss (the branch site has it at 36-11, either we missed a penalty or that’s the wrong score.) to Monivea. Eight new faces brought in after the loss of key men like Conor Mulligan, Darren Griffin, Dave Hansberry, Ger Fahy and Mike Burke. There just isn’t enough talent around the province to replace that lot in one short summer. Monivea didn’t set the world alight here but at times they looked really really sharp. Callum Forde is one of a number of emerging young players in this league and part of a trend where clubs are trusting them to make a difference at first team level. He’s abrasive and quick. He scored a try, made another and looked alert in defence. A raw talent, he will improve too. Outside of that, the scrum will be an issue but the forward play is reasonably good and Cory Brown is likely to develop their phase building in the same mould as what he did with Galwegians and Ballina so they will score a lot of tries, just like last year. Matthew Mannion and Colm Neary make for as good a centre partnership in the league as any and they were able to add Kevin Higgins in there late on as a second half replacement, his pass to release Forde for try number four belonged in a higher league than this. The news from the other two games was interesting with Connemara making an impressive early season statement in Westport and Ballina digging out a last gasp win against Ballinasloe. Connemara off to a flyer The season opener at Carrowholly certainly didn’t go to plan for Westport on Saturday afternoon as the Bulls once again found west coast rivals Connemara to be a tenacious and unyielding opponents. Since Connemara’s return to the Junior ranks 12 months ago, they have won all four fixtures against the Mayo side including a Cawley Cup final and now two wins away from home. Former Westport player and coach Eddie Walsh is at the helm of the Clifden side along with Gerry King and the re-build is coming along ahead of schedule with silverware secured last year and a gluten of emerging young stars adding even more pace to the side. The first quarter on Saturday was scrappy and devoid of scores but the game opened up after the ever shaper Michael O’Toole at scrum half scored his side’s opening try. By half time Connemara led 8-3 and in the second half they took a firm control with Shane Sweeney’s accuracy with the boot key. Both sides will get stronger as the season progress but Connemara have David McDonagh on the mend and the hugely talented Jack Vaughan also due to come back into the full back line giving them more room for improvement then the Bulls. Incidentally, Connemara also have an emerging talent on the wing similar to Monivea’s flyer Forde in Conor Clarke. Again he’s a player who doesn’t shirk from the tackle and has plenty of pace on the counter attack. One to watch for sure. Ballina Survive As far as late shows go, the 22-21 win at Hefferan Park was stretching it to the limit as Ballina emerged from Sunday’s season opening clash with Ballinasloe at Heffernan Park with a one point win thanks to a last gasp converted try. The visitors arrived off the back of a strong pre-season and looking to build on a superb top four finish last year. Their power up front told early on with a penalty try secured and they held a 14-6 lead at one point in a first half where they appeard to have the edge. Ballina’s new addition in the centre played a key role in the fight back, James Coppens hails from Australia and joined the club two weeks ago, he kicked three penalties and one vital conversion in the win. Head coach David Newman was full of praise afterwards. “He’s a great addition. He moved to Belmullet recently from Australia and came to the club looking for rugby. He’s a real talent with a strong rugby league back ground, he played union at schools level but it will take him a while to get fully used to the switch. His kicking is excellent and he’s going to be a great asset.” During an exciting first half, Ballina’s discipline let them down, Conor Forde was first to see yellow before Coppens was caught for offside defending on his own line, Michael Murphy saw yellow at the same point for disputing the call and Ballina were down to 13 men for 10 minutes with Forde just coming back at that point. That they survived, conceding just two first half tries and rallied in the second half off the back of kicks from Coppens and two long range superb kicks from Moynihan is a reason for real optimism. The try came late on with replacement Aidan McNulty crashing over after a series of impressive phases of ball retention and hard gains. What we know and what we don’t know… 1. Corinthians are strong but let’s wait and see how they settle as a Junior squad from next week on once the AIL starts. We should have a clear picture then but the early signs suggest more of the same. 2. Connemara might be a challenger to the title holders this year. They’ll need to stay injury free in key positions but last season, they were the one side that really took to the game to Corinthians over their two encounters and bridged the champions defence on a number of occasions. 3. Galwegians are already well behind the eight ball in the title race. They are likely to have a much better well of resources than the other seven challengers for the title but more of the same from Sunday in terms of discipline and disjointed play and they might be in a relegation scrap. 4. Monivea, Ballina and Ballinasloe are still in a file marked ‘we’re not quite sure yet.’ They should have enough to avoid the bottom two but that’s only if OLBC and Westport fail to improve. As for top four and title challenges, well Monivea and Ballina have had a much better start than Ballinasloe in that regard. 5. Both Westport and OLBC have started poorly. For Westport, scoring just 1 penalty at home to Connemara in 80 minutes is a bad return while OLBC conceded five tries in the end and look like a side in need of six or seven games to find their feet. For now, these two sides are the likely bottom two. Next Weekend Ballinasloe v Westport Connemara v Galwegians Corinthians v OLBC Monivea v Ballina
Posted on: Thu, 11 Sep 2014 11:50:59 +0000
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