Defeat For Munster Under 20 & Under 19

A bad night for Munster as both the Under 20 and Under 19 sides lost to Leinster in their respective Interprovincial campaigns.

Leinster U20s 26, Munster U20s 12

A battling performance by the Munster Under 20 side at Donnybrook but for long periods they had to play second best as Leinster deserved their victory.

The main talking point of the game was the number of yellow cards issued three to Leinster and two to Munster but the Southern province failed to press their numerical numbers into scores.

The first twenty minutes was like a tackling session for the men in red as they failed to establish a platform. In fairness they kept themselves in the game and would have been happy to be only 6-0 down with Leinster centre Tom Daly kicking two penalties.

Midway through the half they finally started to get in the game. Their back-row were enforcing themselves more on the game. Excellent work at the breakdown saw them win a penalty which Brian Haugh converted and although Daly quickly cancelled this out, the belief in the Munster players had grown.

They started taking the game to their opposition with the sin-binning of Leinster’s second row Jerry Sexton being a big momentum shift. Leinster started to look shaky in the line-out and Munster finally started making line breaks with the multi-talented Darren Sweetnam catching the eye. John Fitzgerald and Darren Ryan were finding big gaps through the fringes and the team came within inches of breaching the whitewash on either wing.

They did get to put their opponents down to thirteen when Jack Fitzpatrick was pinged on his own line, but all Munster could get for their efforts was another Haugh penalty. They pushed again from the restart but were hit with a sucker punch right at the end of the half as they also saw yellow with Adrian Enright sent to the bin while Daly increased his side's advantage to 12-6.

The referee started the second half as he finished the first, brandishing his fourth yellow card with Leinster prop Bryan Byrne being the recipient. Haugh's sublime kick once again reduced the gap to three points and he had the scores level four minutes later with his fourth successful kick.

Leinster were back in front on fifty one minutes with a try from Davis Sheehan and Daly converted. Munster skipper John Fitzgerald was next to be sin binned and this left Munster on the defensive.

Leinster sealed the victory in the final minutes when centre Tom Farrell ran in for a try after a block down and Liam Burke converted.

Leinster U20s: J Fitzpatrick (Dublin University); M McFarland (Dublin University), T Farrell (Lansdowne), T Daly (Lansdowne), E Quinn (Lansdowne); B Holland (UCD), D Shanahan (Clontarf); E Byrne (UCD) (c), B Byrne (UCD), D O’Byrne (Old Belvedere); J Sexton (St. Mary’s College), G Thornbury (Dublin University); D Leavy (UCD), Josh van der Flier (UCD), P Timmins (UCD). Replacements: J Lawless (Old Belvedere) for O'Byrne 31, K Murphy (Old Belvedere) for Lawless HT, D Lawler (UCD) for Sexton 53. R O'Loughlin (UCD) for Quinn and L Burke (UCD) for Shanahan 67, J Glynn (UCD) for Holland 77.

Munster U20s: Darren Sweetnam (Bandon Grammar); Rob Jermyn (Midleton), Harry McNulty (Dub University), Rory Scannell (Dolphin), Adrian Enright (Abbeyfeale); Tom Kiersey (Waterpark), Brian Haugh (Young Munster); Niall Horan (Crescent Comp), Will Foley (Dolphin), Brian Scott (UCC); Sean McCarthy (Shannon), John Madigan (Charleville); Jack O'Donoghue (U.L. Bohemian), Darren Ryan (Young Munster), John Fitzgerald (PBC) Capt. Replacements: James Kind (Dolphin) for Madigan and Dave O'Connell (UCC) for Ryan both 59, Max Abbott (PBC) for Foley and Shane O'Leary (Young Munster) for Scannell both 66, Cian O'Donnell (Cashel) for Horan 69, Ben Nugent (UCC) for Haugh 71, Dave Hartnett (PBC) for Scott 72, James McInerney (Garryowen) for Enright 77.

Munster U19s 13, Leinster U19s 32

The Munster Under 19s failed to reproduce the excellent performance they showed last week in Ravenhill, when they were comprehensively beaten by Leinster in their interprovincial tie at Dooradoyle.

Munster never got into this tie and trailed 22-13 at the break with winger Cormac O'Donnell scoring a try and out half Shane Airey kicked a conversion and two penalties.

The visitors added a further ten points after the break and must now be odds on to win the Interprovincial championship.

Munster U19s: David Johnston (Rockwell); Cormac O'Donnell (St. Munchin's), Dan Goggin (St. Munchin's), Ned Hodson (Midleton College), Cillian Ansbro (Youghal); Shane Airey ( St. Munchin's), Ryan Foley (CBC); Charlie Slowey (CBC), Aidan Slattery (PBC), Rory Burke (CBC); Darragh Moloney (CBC), Patrick Kearns (Ard Scoil Ris); Diarmuid Dee (Crescent Comp.), Sonny Dwyer (Rockwell) Capt, Lee Nicholas (St. Munchin's). Replacements: Ben Burns (Castletroy), Steven Dalton (UCC), Conor Glynn (Ard Scoil Ris), Tom Ryan (Glenstal Abbey), Jack Dineen (Crescent Comp), Aaron Atkinson (Garryowen), Greg Barry (Crescent Comp), JJ McDonnell (Castletroy.