Presentation Brothers College booked their spot in the semi-finals of the Pinergy Munster School Senior Cup as they had an 11 point winning margin in wet and windy conditions in Virgin Media Park this afternoon.

A winning start for the current holders, 12 months ago they lost at this stage and had to go through the quarter finals to eventually lift silverware. We could well see the cross city rivals Pres and Christians meeting in another final as they are in opposite semi finals.

Not an easy day and certainly both left everything out there to reach that important next stage, Crescent had chances but failed to materialise scores, just one penalty to their name this afternoon.

Rockwell College will meet Crescent College in the quarter final stage of the competition, which promises to be another tough meeting for Lee Nicholas’s charges.

Crescent do look like contenders, maybe on a different day that didn’t see wind and driving rain would they be able to put scores on the board, certainly in defence they look solid as two moments of magic gave PBC the win.

Neville O’Leary and Deckie Fitzgerald with the tries, two tremendous scores that bookended the win for PBC. While they also defended ferociously not allowing Crescent have a host of options in attack, they were limited to those chances as the defensive work rate by both teams looks to be very strong.

In the opening half Crescent laid the marker down and spent the grand majority camped in the PBC end of Virgin Media Park. While Pres did indeed get moving into the other end of the field, Crescent were strong in being able to win the ball back and attack with ferocity.

A scrum that thrived but a set piece that left them down was the lineout, having done well to camp Pres back to the wall they were unable to use the lineout and setup a powerful maul with errors and Pres gallantly turning over in the lineout.

Cagey from the opening minute, with a short while left in the opening half, Pres burst into life. 34 minutes on the clock having moved the ball into the Crescent half of the field, Denis Murphy stole Crescent line out as he was taken out in the air, Pres had a penalty in a dangerous part of the field.

Opting to scrum Crescent put a bit of a shunt to force the turnover, Pres with the ball at the feet of Liam Tuohy kept the pressure up. Tuohy the scrum-half finding Neville O’Leary who cut inside to take possession, the winger used his quick feet to evade two tacklers before darting under the posts. Gene O’Leary Kareem converted for a 7-0 lead.

Ten minutes of stoppage time certainly gave more of a chance for a further score before the interval. It would arrive with the last kick of the opening half, Pres conceding a penalty and opting for the posts, Evan Cusack made no mistake cutting the deficit to four by the interval, 7-3.

Again into the second half it was very hard to separate these two teams, Crescent on the back foot needed to create the chances but again it just was not coming for them.

Like the first half Pres would get a try from a penalty inside the Crescent 22, again opting for the scrum they kept on the attack, Harry Murphy with the offload for substitute Deckie Fitzgerald to burst through a gap and race over for the score, O’Leary Kareem with two extra points and the lead was 11, 14-3.

Into the final minutes Crescent battled until the end but just could not run the phases and reduce the deficit.

Post Match:

Ger Burke

Gene O'Leary Kareem

Lee Nicholas

Conor Ryan