GOREY EDGED OUT IN CUP TIE
16/02/2014
Ashbourne 21 Gorey 16
When the draw was made for the second round of the Towns Cup and Gorey were drawn away to Ashbourne, many pundits had this one down to be the tie of the round. Both teams were unbeaten in their respective Leagues but Ashbourne were playing in Division 1B a League higher than Gorey and had the luxury of home advantage. Ashbourne were clearly in the driving seat as they say in rugby, home advantage is worth 7pts to your team and Gorey having just missed out last year at the same stage of the Cup to Cill Dara, were determined to go one step further this year, so with all these ingredients this was going to be an interesting fixture with only one team going to remain unbeaten by the end of the day.
With a large crowd in attendance and plenty of travelling Gorey supporters, including Gorey U11's, U12's and their parents (who had a game against Ashbourne before kick off) the game got underway on one of the finest playing surfaces and facilities in the Leinster area and is why the Ladies Irish team and Youths have their Internatinal matches in this location. Philly Horan chose to start with the majority of same team that had been successful for him in the first round with the exception of himself coming in at No 8 and Jason Emery back from injury slotting in at tight head.
The weather held up and conditions were perfect at the start of the game. From the start it could be seem that these were two evenly matched sides and it would come down to who would win the set pieces and who could keep their discipline, as the Referee stamped his authority, from the start, on the game. Gorey were first on the score sheet when after an infringement at the breakdown were awarded a penalty and James Nolan slotted it over. Soon after Ashbourne levelled the scores with a penalty of their own for a similar infringement. It was from this stage on that the penalty count seemed to stack up between both sides and the kicks were slotted over with Ashbourne missing one and James Nolan kicked all his, both sides reached half time 9pts a piece and very evenly matched.
The second half commenced with Gorey piling on the pressure and when they were awarded a scrum close to the Ashbourne line, Phil Horan broke away from the back of the scrum to crash over the line and with James Nolan converting, Gorey were 16pts to 9pts ahead but this was to be their last score of the game. The fact of the matter is that at this level in rugby you need to be winning your own set pieces and in this area Gorey were throwing away possession far to cheaply and finding themselves on the backfoot a lot. From here on in the game Ashbourne dug deep and constantly used their forwards and their No. 8 to pick and go off the back of the rucks and Gorey's penalty count against them mounted up with errors been made at vital times in the game. A testimony to Gorey's heroic defence was all of Ashbourne's scores came from the boot of their No. 10 with no tries being scored but this defence came at a cost when Pill Horan was sin binned (after been judged to have come in at the side of the ruck which seem some what of a hard decision) with 10 minutes to go. Ashbourne played the game very cleverly and made used of their extra man and their Division 1B experience and kept hammering Gorey's try line and were awarded 4 kickable penalties for their efforts, which were slotted over to bring the scores to 21pts to 16pts at the final whistle much to the heart break of the large Gorey support (which must have out numbered Ashbourne 3 to 1)and brought the curtain down on Gorey's cup run for another year. This was Gorey's first defeat of the season and they will take solace from the fact that they are still League Leaders and can concentrate their efforts now on the Division 2A title.
Team: 1. Ciaran Allen 2. Barry O'Connor 3. Jason Emery 4. Adrian Copeland 5. PJ Redmond 6. Michael Woods 7. Ben Horan 8. Philip Horan 9. Matt Bater (Capt) 10. Stephen Dukes 11. Shane O'Leary 12. James Nolan 13. Colin Peavoy 14. Darren Dunne 15. Neville Copeland 16. Fergal Bolger 17. Adain O'Brien 18.Richard Jones 19.Tom Tomkins 20.Jordan Ahern