With the heavy rain of Saturday night, the Enniskillen girls took to an extremely muddy Mullaghmeen in miserable conditions for a match which was to be a battle of the forwards at the breakdown, in what turned out to be the only match played, of the four due, in the Ulster Cup this weekend.
‘Skins started brightly and from kicking off they pressurised the Cavan receiver and played the first ten minutes of rugby in the Cavan ‘22’. Once again the ‘Skins pack showed their dominance in the scrum, winning a number against the head and once again the “under-19” rule, allowing only a metre and a half
drive, worked only in the opposition’s favour. After a number of forward phases, scrum-half Noreen Nethercott utilised her quick reactions, not for the first time, to pick up a loose ball, run around the Cavan defence and cross the line for an unconverted score to put Enniskillen into a five point lead. Receiving ball from the kick off ‘Skins again worked play back into the Cavan half, with some strong running from Ashling Maguire and Shauna McMorrow, following which, a pick up at the back of a scrum on the ’22’ saw Gemma McCutcheon race to the line for ‘Skins second try that Caoimhe Morris converted to put ‘Skins
12 – 0 ahead. The atrocious conditions caused many handling errors which led to the game becoming very broken and
disjointed and the majority of the second half was a scrappy affair with most of it played among the forwards, with hard yards being made by Collette McMorrow, Alice Swan and Clare Brogan. A great spell of hard rugby from the Cavan pack just after kick off saw them camped in the ‘Skins half until a
turn-over ball made its way to ‘Skins out-half, Morris, who used her vision to step the Cavan defensive line and run from just outside her own ‘22’, make a lovely change of direction to shrug off the Cavan full back coming across pitch at speed to reach within ten metres of the Cavan try line, where the full back managed to catch up for a try-saving tackle. From the breakdown, ‘Skins shipped the ball wide and Brenda Brogan
did dive over the line but the referee blew very late for an earlier knock on. The ‘Skins pack managed another win against the head in the resulting scrum but quickly lost possession again. The best passage of play came in the last 10 minutes of the game when ‘Skins finally seemed to come to
terms with the worsening conditions and began to play hard-hitting forward rugby. With Cavan unable to escape the mud bath that was their ‘22’ great ball retention at the breakdown allowed a near constant flow of forwards crashing the ball up, with picks from the base of the ruck and also some hard running from Nethercott and Morris, as well as centres Sarah Teague and Brogan, enough space was eventually made for Brogan to crash over the line on the final play of the game for an unconverted try to leave the scoreline at 17 – 0. It was not pretty rugby by any means but the coaches and the team were pleased to take the hard earned four points which leaves them topping the “Ulster West” pool, unbeaten after all their pool matches,
rewarding them with a home fixture against the bottom team of the “Ulster East” pool for round 4 of the Ulster Cup. With the points from all four rounds being tallied the top two teams overall play for the coveted Rosie Stewart Memorial Cup and a win next weekend is guaranteed to put ‘Skins in the final. All support is much appreciated and the match will kick off at 1 pm next Sunday. Opponents are still to be verified as both matches in the “East” pool were postponed until mid week. Anyone interested giving rugby a go can contact Helen on 07842776315.
“Ulster West”
Played Won Drew Lost BonusPts Points
Enniskillen 3 3 0 0 2 14
City of Derry 3 2 0 1 1 9
Sligo 3 1 0 2 1 5
Cavan 3 0 0 3 0 0
“Ulster East”
Played Won Lost Draw Bonus Pts Points
Cooke 2 2 0 0 2 10
Queens 2 1 0 1 1 7
Harlequins 2 0 1 1 0 2
Carrickfergus 2 0 2 0 0 0
