VIRGINIA U18, PROGRESS TO LEAGUE SEMI FINAL
Virginia hosted Lisburn in the league play-off quarter final on Saturday 25th of February. The game was played under difficult conditions but both teams did their upmost to deliver an entertaining game.
After 5 minutes of a round of observation, Virginia were the first to put points on the board. Deep in Lisburn territory the ball reached centre Nathan McQuade who ignored the 2 players outside him to kick behind the defence. The ball was kept in play by Connor McHugh and kicked in Lisburn’s try area. McQuade outpaced the retreating defenders to ground the ball. The difficult conversion was missed leaving the score to 5-0. Mixed feeling among the coaching team, they were happy with the score not so about the butchered 3 vs 1!
Lisburn were spurred on and managed a try of their own 5 minutes later. The ball came out of a messy ruck situation and took Virginia off guard. Lisburn exploited missed tackles on the blind side to level the score. 5-5.
Virginia second try follow up shortly, following a good lineout the ball was spread wide. Good decoy runners confused the Lisburn defence and few passes later winger Connor McHugh touched down for the second try of the day. Once again, the tough conversion was missed. 10-5
Virginia were on the up and dominating both possession and territory. Each time Virginia upped the tempo of the game they had the visitors on the back foot.
On the 20th minutes, Virginia recycled the ball a few times and following a clean break by Charlie Reilly found themselves at an arm reach of Lisburn. Few pick and goes put Lisburn under pressure, the backs were calling for the ball but prop Nial Preston had other idea. He grabbed the ball at the base of the ruck and dived over the line. 15-5 without the conversion.
Virginia were now in full control and kept coming at Lisburn.
Despite the difficult conditions, Virginia tried to keep the ball alive, the passes didn’t stick on all occasions but perseverance always pays!!
Virginia were dominant in scrums and lineouts, they assured their own balls whilst stealing few oppositions. On one scrum the Virginia won the ball against the head. The ball went wide and reached centre Charlie Reilly. Reilly punched through Lisburn line using his trade mark side-step to run unopposed in between the posts. The conversion was scored to bring the score to 22-5 at half time.
Virginia started the second half strongly and it wasn’t long until winger Gareth Mannion added to his team tally. From a ruck turn over the ball was sent to the backs, good handling allowed the host team to out flank Lisburn scrambling defence. Mannion switched the after burners on and raced to the line. No conversion 27-5
Virginia started to introduced subs with Keelan Sheridan coming on the wing and Christopher McDonnell in the engine room.
Nathan McQuade added his second try of the day half way through the second half following a flurry of off-loads. The conversion was missed leaving the score at 32-5.
More replacements were introduced, prop Tommaso Frausin and winger Anthony Moore were brought in for owen Doyle and Connor McHugh repectively.
The last score of the day came courtesy of subs Chris McDonell from close range. Once again Virginia worked their way up the field following quick recycling. Once near the line, McDonnell picked and went to burrow his way across the line. Conversion was missed leaving the final score at 37-5.
A good game from both teams, played in great spirits. Credit to Lisburn for travelling down, the players and coaches to be commended for their great attitude and manners on as well as off the pitch.
It’s on to the semi-final next for Virginia. They’ll travel the well know path to county Tyrone on Saturday to cross swords with Rainey Old Boys R.F.C once again.
VRFC: Nial Preston; Luke Sheriff; Owen Doyle; Conor Cahill; Samuel Ajetunmobi; Steven Ryan; Daragh O’Leary; Rory Smith; Sean Warren; Adrian Rogers; Connor McHugh; Charlie Reilly; Nathan McQuade; Gareth Mannion; John Cooke; Tommaso Frausin; Christopher McDonnell; Anthony Moore; Keelan Sheridan.
Virginia RFC U14s take another step to Ulster League success
The U14s welcomed Ards RFC to The Deerpark for the Ulster Carpets League quarter final last Saturday afternoon. The game got underway in damp conditions, and after an early knock on Virginia found themselves defending in their own half, but clearly set out their intent with some massive tackles from Thomas Sheridan, Ryan McGuigan and Darren Kavanagh forcing the turnovers. They then turned defence into attack, battling their way up the field phase by phase with big carries from Mathew Byers and Diarmuid O’Reilly, eventually shipping it out to the backs. Ciaran Levi-Valensi and Jack Carroll ran some great attacking lines, and a wrap around by Conor Nulty allowed him to run in the opening try in the corner.
It wasn’t going to be all one sided though, the visitors put on some real pressure clearing Virginia off a few rucks and making their way into their twenty-two, but the hosts were always quick to set their defensive line, and first up tackles were the key to eventually holding Ards up over the line. They defended the subsequent five 5 metre scrum excellently and cleared their lines, Virginia then got the upper hand at the breakdown, and got back into Ards territory, where a thundering pick and go from Kieran Duffy for the second try and the conversion from Jake White Duffy stretched the lead to 12-0 at the end of the first half.
The second half was even more intense, the forwards again setting a good platform with Mark Gibney clearing the way for Oscar Erikson to put Jake through a hole in the Ards defence to get in to their twenty-two, a couple of quick phases followed and Luke Morris crashed over to open the second half scoring and take the lead to 17-0. Ards were a quality side though and played for long periods in Virginia territory, but again were held up over the line thanks to a try saving tackle by Malachy Walker. Shortly after they were finally able to find a gap in the home sides defence with a quality strike move off the back of the scrum to get themselves back in the game and close the gap to 10 points. Cormac Monaghan and Luke Doyle were brought on to add power and pace to Virginia’s game plan, and both played a big part in getting the team back on track and into Ards half, where Tyrone Tynan was able to run a great line on the wing beating two defenders to score in the corner and restore the 15 point lead. Donal Maguire came on in the front row and Patrick Sheridan joined the backs to keep the Virginia team sharpen up in the closing stages and a second Conor Nulty try closed out the game with a final score 27-7. This secured a semi-final place next weekend away to Letterkenny RFC.
