Unique hat-trick of provincial titles for top Mayo college

THERE aren’t too many Connaught Telegraph readers who will remember former Spurs and Northern Ireland player Danny Blanchflower, double-winner with the North London club and ranked by The Times newspaper as the greatest player ever to pull on the club’s white jersey.

For all his leadership and footballing skills, it could be argued that Blanchflower is best remembered for his quote about the sport, saying: “The great fallacy is that the game is first and last about winning. It is nothing of the kind.

"The game is about glory, it is about doing things in style and with a flourish, about going out and beating the lot, not waiting for them to die of boredom.”

St. Gerald’s of Castlebar certainly played in that spirit in the Connacht Schools Senior C Cup final when they went out and looked to play with ball in hand from start to finish, trusting in the ability and quality of their players to overcome a Rice College side that had plenty of individual talent of their own.

“That’s what we like to do, to let our players look up and play what’s in front of them,” said Castlebar RFC and St. Gerald’s coach Paddy Durcan afterwards.

“Of course you want to go wide and score tries, the game is much more enjoyable when you do that, and ultimately that’s very important for us – we want these players to enjoy their rugby so they’ll want to keep up the sport.

“We’ve picked up three or four really good players already, from both the school junior squad and the senior squad, and that’s what it’s all about, getting extra players out playing games.”

Durcan paid tribute to Rice College’s efforts too, saying that the scoreline didn’t at all reflect their effort or the competitiveness of a cup final that, oddly, saw the Westport side lead by 10 points early in the second half.

“We went behind from the get-go, then hit a bit of a purple patch and got in front. Then they came back to level and at one stage we were 10 points down. Then we kicked on but certainly the score is a bit flattering, we did not have things all our own way by any means.”

St. Gerald’s did start well, making it clear early on how they planned to go about their business.

After conceding the first score to a Cillian McKeown penalty, John O’Brien made good ground through midfield with a strong carry, Conor McInerney opted to tap and go with two penalties, and when Carl Jackson and Excel Anslem brought play up close to the Rice College line, it was Dylan Rice who applied the finish.

There was blunt force to St. Gerald’s game, but there was awareness and patience too.

Their next attack brought them so close to the line that O’Brien and Leo Bailey might have been tempted to try and stretch out and finish themselves, but they kept their nerve, recycled play and Rice was there again to inflict further damage on the school that bears his name.

Because kicks were so rare, this was a game where the wingers and full-backs pushed up quite high, and Rice College took advantage of this when team captain Peter McNally dinked a ball over the top, and while Matthew Flannelly was the favourite to handle it, a cruel sideways bounce deceived the full-back and allowed Jack O’Grady to swoop in and run through 30 metres of open space before dotting down under the posts.

A third try from Rice – Dylan, not the college – made it 17-10 by half-time, but the Westport students exploded out of the blocks after the restart.

Zak Zerey showed a clean pair of heels to the defence for the opening try and then cut open the defence with a second burst that allowed Cathal Guilfoyle to finish, and when an uncharacteristic handling error in the Castlebar back line as they tried to carry the ball out from their own 22 gave Darragh O’Connor the chance to make it 17 points unanswered, he duly obliged.

Tempting though it might have been to declare this as a case of St. Gerald’s living by the sword and dying by the sword, given their persistence with running the ball from anywhere and everywhere, they were about to be resurrected by the same blade.

First it was McInerney and Seán Collins doing the hard work to allow Alex Dunlop to finish, then, with 20 minutes to play, outstanding pace from Leo Bailey delivered the levelling score.

Bailey then won a penalty from which Dylan Rice simply tapped to himself and powered across the line, and by now Rice College were reeling, unable to get their hands on the ball and expending a world of energy trying to stem the tide of St. Gerald’s runners.

Seán Collins claimed a restart that led to another Bailey score, then he added his name to the scorers’ list, a list that was rounded off when Patrick Flannelly sprinted over and Conor McInerney added a touchline conversion to bring up a half-century that said a lot more about St. Gerald’s style of play than the real gap between these two local rivals in the Galway stadium.

This victory completed a remarkable hat trick of senior Connacht titles for the school this year in Gaelic football, soccer and rugby.

St. Gerald's College, Castlebar: Matthew Flannelly; Leo Bailey, John O’Brien, Patrick Flannelly, Adam Murphy; Oran Bourke, Conor McInerney; Carl Jackson, Peter Foy, Seán Collins; Alex Dunlop, Evan Mulchrone; Lee Kirrane, Excel Anslem, Dylan Rice.

Replacements: Oisín Feeney for M. Flannelly (16), Khamal Momoh for Mulchrone (half-time), Luke Carney for Kirrane (61), Kevin Rowland for Bourke (61), Fabien Stach for Jackson (70), Szymon Solowinski for Foy (70), Darragh O’Grady for Murphy (70).

Rice College, Westport: Eoghan Wright; Aaron O’Malley, Harry Grimes, Peter McNally, Cathal Guilfoyle; Cillian McKeown, Jack O’Grady; Aaron Ryan, Zak Zerey, Keith O’Malley; Art Swanton, Cyprian Walencik; Tim Ginnelly, Shane Lavelle, Darragh O’Connor.

Replacements: Darragh Ryan for A. Ryan (47), Brian Brady for Ginnelly (59), Aditya Shaw for A O’Malley (64), William Duggan for Swanton (64), Cian Hughes for Lavelle (69).

Referee: Mark Harrigan.