St Mary's bounce back with league win

ST Mary's got their league campaign back on track last Sunday in Corbally against a very gallant and young Bandon.

Saints got off to a flyer when a mistake by the Bandon full-back allowed Brian Neilan to hack the ball on and win

the race to touch down in the corner after only two minutes on the clock. Sean Lyons missed the conversion.

Sean made ammends for this when he jinked his way from the '22' past everyone to score in the same corner and he then converted his own try to leave the score 12-0 after only fifteen minutes. Ten minutes later it was Stuart Lipper who made a good break from halfway and fed Sean Markham to score under the posts with Sean Lyons getting the conversion. Saints wrapped up the bonus point on the forty minute mark when Darren Clancy took a great lineout and Sean Markham made a good break and slipped a lovely inside pass to John Mac who then fed Darren Clancy to finish off the move he started with a try under the posts which Sean Lyons

converted to leave Mary's leading 26-0 at the break.

Saints were coasting at this stage and made a few substitutions for the second half but they seemed to lose their shape and let Bandon back into the game when they scored a try in the corner on forty five minutes after some bad missed tackles by Saints and the conversion brought the score to 26-7.

This seemed to give Bandon hope and they took the game to Saints and were rewarded again when they hacked the ball on and won the race to touchdown on sixty three minutes but the convert was missed 26-12. Bandon kept piling on the pressure and on seventy minutes a driving maul led to their third try

which was also converted to bring the score to 26-19.

The Saints' support were looking a bit anxious at this stage but with the earlier substitutions reversed Saints were back to the starting fifteen again and this gave them a new lease of life and they put the pressure back on Bandon and scored two late penalties by Sean Lyons to seal the hard fought win

on a 32-19 scoreline.

Saints played some superb rugby in the first half but they will need to improve on their second half effort to be in with a chance of promotion with only three games remaining.

Next up for Saints is the Munster Junior Cup Round 4 away to Kanturk next Sunday. This will be a tough encounter with Kanturk going well in the first division.

There is a bus organised for Sunday morning for the above fixture, leaving at 11am sharp from the club.

Fixtures for next weekend as follows.

Sunday 29th January.

Munster Junior Cup (RD 4) Kanturk v St. Mary's Kanturk, kick-off 2pm