Coleraine v Letterkenny U18s

1) Luke McKeever
2) Eoin Parkinson
3) Dan Geoghegan
4) Adam McElwaine
5) Emmet Gillespie
6) Jack Smyth
7) Odhrán Finn
8) Mathew Duffy

9) Conor Aiken
10) Jack Speer (Captain)
11) Ciarnan Nicholas
12) Brian McGettigan
13) Leon Duffy
14) Finn Nicolas
15 )

Letterkenny headed to Coleraine on a beautiful morning for rugby hoping to build on their victory over Rainey last week.
However, with a number of players unavailable and a couple of late cry offs due to illness, LK only had 14 players so were going to have an uphill battle against a Coleraine side sitting at the upper end of the league table.
With the bus journey and the disruptions of having players playing out of position, Coleraine run in 2 converted tries in the 1st 5 minutes.
However, LK settled after this and were matching Coleraine when unfortunately inside centre Brian Mcgettigan suffered a shoulder injury and had to come off reducing LK to 13 players.
Despite this LK held possession and gained territory thru good drives from Jack Smyth, Mathew Duffy, Emmet Gillespie and Adam McElwaine and after a period of concerted pressure, Conor Aiken sniped over to score 15m to the right of the posts with Adam McElwaine converting. Just on the stroke of half time Coleraine with the extra numbers scored again leaving it 28-7 at half time.

After the break, Coleraine used their numerical advantage and run in 3 tries out wide but the LK were defensively still putting in the big tackles with Eoin parkinson and Dan Geoghegan leading the way.
At this stage LK realised kicking for territory wasn't working with Coleraine having the extra numbers and started to play a tighter game with 1st up ball carriers and pick and go being the policy with everyone from Luke Mckeever at prop to Ciarnan Nicholas on the wing getting involved and all were getting over the gain line.
Lk were cursed again when Leon Duffy had to go off injured after 15 minutes of the 2nd half leaving 12 players on the pitch but as the numbers decreased, the heart and effort increased and Dan Geoghegan crashed over to score and this was quickly followed by another try by Odhrán Finn who made a break from 40m out and beat the covering defense to score under the posts. Both were converted by Adam to leave a final score of 54-21.

The score line did not reflect the performance, heart and discipline showed by all players and they can take great pride in their effort as a team. They will have better results ahead and most definitely better luck too.
Whilst anyone could’ve been MOTM , Dan Geoghegan deservedly was the players pick with a barnstorming performance with Jack Smyth and Eoin Parkinson being next.
We also want to wish Brian a speedy recovery from his shoulder injury and he will be missed over the coming weeks for his tenacity and strength in the centre of the field.
LK are at home next week vs limavady.

Thanks to Shane Fullerton for the write up this week.