On Thursday last The Grounds of St Muredach's College played host to two aspiring young teams, one from the South Sligo coastal town of Easkey and the other a young development team from St Muredach's College.

Colaiste Iascaigh came to make their debut in a challenge game against a young and inexperienced Muredach's outfit looking to challenge for places on the junior cup team.
The tone was set early by the eager visitors as they ran the ball at every opportunity and this set the standard for an intriguing match.
What the visitors lacked in experience they made up for it in heart and desire to succeed and it took all of the Ballina boys' skills to deny them.

Colaiste Iascaigh displayed some very confident ball skills, no doubt ascertained on the GAA field and they attacked with real prowess and zest matched with brute force and aggression at the breakdown.

The young Saints where shell-shocked early on at the physicality that the South Sligo boys brought to the table and they had to dig deep to defend the line with all they had. Eventually, the home boys began to make a mark on proceedings and after a handling error by Easkey allowed Muredach's counter on a scrum advantage initiated by Niall Feeney who found powerful 14-year-old Jason O'Brien standing at 5ft 10" and he imposed himself with blinding pace and skills to match and released Ronan Connolly to score the first of three tries. Oisin Flynn converted and this steadied the ship for the young Saints.

Easkey restarted with a clever kick-off routine to expose the right wing which allowed Cathan Hannon to chase down and force the winger to knock the ball on and concede the scrum. This gave the boys in blue a platform to attack from, only to be bundled into touch by Simon Bourke, who really has found his place as a winger, bringing his endurance training to the fore from his canoeing adventures.

Easkey attacked at every opportunity and constantly put the Muredach's players under the cosh through relentless phase play but their inability to score was their Achilles heel. However, this will improve with every outing.

Muredach's doubled their lead when Connolly crashed over from short range with Flynn adding the extras and this was to be the final flurry of the half as they went to the changing room with a 14-0 lead.

The second period resumed with Easkey on the hunt for a score of their own and they were rewarded when powerful centre, Hannon evaded the would-be tackles of Muredach's before he himself added the extras.

Muredachs' mounting penalty count was costing field position but their defensive system married with great skill allowed them to set Connolly free to cut through the Easkey line to score under the posts and Flynn added the extras.

Both sides emptied the bench and this proved decisive for Muredach's as Enda Conlon and experienced Evan Ferguson where instrumental in more scores as their squad depth proved too much for Easkey and scoreline read 32-7 at the final whistle.

On the whole, this was a very worthwhile exhibition as it gave invaluable experience of playing high tempo rugby at such a young age and it’s a reward to the players of both sides for all their hard work on the training paddock.

Roll on 2017!!

Thanks to Russell O'Brien for the comprehensive report and Alan Rowe for the pictures on our website.