Rockwell College had to fight until the better end to quench the fire of Glenstal Abbey and advance to the quarter final stage of the Pingery Munster Schools Senior Cup.

It looked like Rockwell who would be favourites to win this tie had their work done at times, Glenstal never gave up and stayed fighting until the very end as Rian Concannon crossed but the margin of three that decided the tie could not be shifted.

Ill discipline did cost Glenstal at key moments, three yellow cards shown in the contest and on one occasion they were down to 13 men with two in the bin within a matter of minutes.

Mark Neville with a decisive penalty in his first game in the Senior Cup, the young full-back was on form all afternoon and would also give the Tipp side the lead from an opening penalty as Glenstal defended ferociously to hold them up near the line. 

You can only do so much however, having defended so well with 14 minutes elapsed, the defence was unable to deal with further pressure and Rockwell captain Ronan O’Connor delivered the try on a second attempt from close range. Neville added the extras to put Rockwell 10-0 up.

A first half where Rockwell dominated for the opening stages but in the final minutes Glenstal started to come back into proceedings. Certainly the side who had to come through round one woke up when Sean Roche went over for their opening try. Finn Connolly deserves all the plaudits for the build up, tapping a free he made a huge lung-bursting run towards the Rockwell line, dancing left and right and with two Rockwell men to tackle him, he offloaded to Roche to run in and score. The try converted as BJ Botha’s side cut the deficit to 10-5 at the interval.

Despite the momentum looking to have shifted towards Glenstal at the latter stages of the opening half, whatever was said to Rockwell at the break looked to have kicked them into gear in the early minutes of the second stanza.

A decisive moment in the finish, winger Joe Higgins took the ball on the 22 in the opening minutes of the half and raced down the right flank to dot down in the corner. Neville was unable to kick the extras but the lead was 15-5 in favour of Rockwell.

Glenstal just never backed down. Never gave up and were inspired to book a spot in this year’s quarter finals, Concannon was the catalyst for Glenstal. Giving Rockwell warning signs when he cut a gap and raced in to touch down a second Glenstal try and reduce arrears by five.

Neville notched his second penalty of the afternoon for Rockwell, this in the end would be the deciding score of the contest. Despite the best efforts of Concannon who stole possession as Rockwell played wide to the wing he was occupying, stealing possession he ran with open pasture and dotted the third try for Glenstal.

Those final minutes were tense, time and possession just no coming the way of Glenstal, Rockwell certainly look strong, their pack was on the money and with a young looking team, they can only grow in this competition.

Post Match

https://youtu.be/bQJXCaYxgYU