South Delta Rugby

The The lads have been amazingly responsive to the “cultural” side of this tour. Needless to say the Guinness factory was a hit, but the Book of Kells was really interesting for them, especially the Trinity College Library. Today, we did not know how they would react to stopping to see the Rock of Cashel on the way to Cork.

Our resident Irishman Alan Dagg figured they would be bored with this but to the man they were so amazed with the history and architecture that we were somewhat astounded. We have now decided to fit at least one other castle into the tour.

The highlight of course was St. Patrick’s Day. Everyone has to wear green on that day so all 44 of us hit a street vendor and he likely retired after huge sales of scarves, flags, hats etc.  The city is alive on this day and the major streets are shut down to cars for the day

More to come. Had a practice that hockey coaches refer to as a “bag skate” this morning before heading to Cork. Pre-game practice tomorrow and then two games simultaneously at 7:00 pm in Tipperary. Next day off to Limerick. The boys have been great with the exception of the flu/cold that has hit us like the plague.

The SDSS Devils found themselves in tough against a very strong Ashbourne U-18 side in its second game on tour.  The Ashbourne team had recently clinched it’s local league title and their skill and togetherness were evident throughout the game. 

The eventual score was 48-0 to the home team.  However, that did not really do justice to the spirit and tenacity of the Devils defending against a highly skillful and well drilled Ashbourne team.  Unfortunately, the team that was scheduled to play our second squad cancelled only days before the fixture and the organizers were unable to find a replacement team.  However, the coaches were able to rotate all the players into the game as they did in the first game against Malahide.  And the team didn’t miss a beat as all the players were rotated in

The boys agreed that this was an educational experience.  Some might say a “schooling”.  But this group who have been playing together in both rugby and Gaelic football since they were 11 were a well oiled machine.  The scrum half / fly half connection was wonderful to watch and the fly half had moves that left the proverbial jockstrap around one’s ankles. 

But what these lads had down to an art was the rolling maul.  The best we have come against or seen so far.  At one point they rolled over 20 yards and no one knew who had the ball and we tackled several players only to look up and see a lad lying in our end with the ball down for the try.  So we will be practicing this for attack and developing defending techniques beginning tomorrow.