Game 4 - Garbally College Ireland

Game 4 versus Garbally College

1^st October 2019

Visiting Garbally College – founded in the 1860’s on the 300 acres Garbally Estate, originally owned by the Lords of the time – was quite the experience. Set in the unique countryside of Western Ireland the surrounds were stunning – beautiful part of the world. Having not played in this area before we had no idea what to expect, apart from the fact that they had won the Senior School trophy for the past few years.

With the College’s grounds flooded by the recent rain the game was changed to a very impressive 4G synthetic field about forty minutes away. What a setting, deep in the countryside, surrounded by green rolling hills, the field was amazing.

Faced with the great unknown the team was asked to go out and start with quick line-speed and aggression at the breakdown – set the scene first. This happened and IPC very quickly showed they were ready to play. Unfortunately, Garbally were first on the board with a try against the run of play. Pinned on their own try line for an extended period, IPC really aimed up and keep Garbally from crossing the white line again for the half.  During the half IPC was on the receiving end of the field position battle with Garbally dominating this and really making us work to create scoring opportunities.

Battling poor field position and decision making at times the first half became a real arm-wrestle when Northern and Southern rule interpretations clashed causing IPC to receive two yellow cards – reducing the player count to 13 at one stage. With the odds against them IPC still managed to muscle their way down the paddock and scored two tries of their own before half time. Half time score 14 to 5 IPC.

Half time saw the IPC coaches willing their troops to stick to the game plan and to watch their discipline, body height in contact, lower their tackle focus and making sure they stuck their tackles. Once again, Garbally started well with a try against the run of play and followed this up with another try due to mistakes made by IPC. IPC, not to be outdone soon settled into the job at hand and began to dominate possession but found themselves in hot water again receiving another three yellow cards in the half – five yellow cards in total?

Faced with minimal time with the full compliment on the field IPC continually dug deep to defend their line admirably and to show a lot of grit to slowly but surely work their way down the field to finally score two additional tries. These tries were enough to seal the win and give IPC a record of four wins from four games with a score-line of 26 to 22 IPC.

Tries: Terrence Rooney, Finn Andreassen, Lachlan Ryan and Dean Gillham.

Conversions: Declan Marchioni (3)

MVP’s: (3) Terrence Rooney – (2) Aiden Scott – (1) Patrick Tarttelin, Dean Gillham & Kobe Gallagher

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