Heartbreak for Cashel as promotion push falls just short with last gasp defeat
Cashel rugby club are a resilient lot. They’ve had many highs and lows over the years and grown as they did, facing each challenge with strength and perseverance. But even their greatest depths of determination will be tested after Saturday’s heartbreaking defeat in Dublin, when they lost at the death in their All-Ireland rugby league play off.
That it was played in bright sunshine after toiling for months in the depths of Winter, made it feel even more like the rugby Gods were mocking them, but like Sisyphus they were sent back down to the bottom of the hill, from where they will start once again next season.
The scene on Saturday was set from the moment the referee blew the final whistle on the victory against Barnhall the previous weekend in Spafield.
That was a step they had to get over, after they had been defeated by the same opponents last year in a playoff semi-final.
This year they were determined to go one better, and after a long and tortuous campaign of eighteen games that took the club the length and breadth of the country, they won fourteen and only narrowly missed out on automatic promotion, coming second in the table to a strong Instonians side.
But they weren’t to be denied again, and Barnhall were put to the sword in front of a large crowd in Cashel.
By the end of that evening, after a few songs, and a few drinks, plans were being made to travel to the heart of the capital, as news came through that their opponents would be Dublin side, Dublin University Football Club.
The name seems almost innocuous, similar to many third level rugby teams not only across Ireland, but wherever the game is played. But those in the rugby know, know different.
Dublin University Football club, are rugby royalty. The Origin of the Species in terms of rugby history. Better known as Trinity, the scholastic behemoth that stands at the top of College Green in Dublin. Founded in 1854. The oldest rugby club in the world in continuous existence. The OG.
And they take their rugby seriously in Trinity, proud of their history, and their name. It was to this that the hordes of supporters from Cashel would descend, with nothing else on their minds but to replace such an august opponent from the top table of Irish club rugby, and to join Nenagh as a second Tipperary side to play First Division in the AIL.
For many of the Trinners, this felt very much like the moment when they realised that the barbarians were at the gate. Or rather, the playing pitch at College Road, where the large Cashel crowd had to pass a cricket game in motion before getting acquainted with the oval ball. Tis a long way from Tom Semple’s Stadium they were now, but the sun was shining, the beer was cold and the Cashel team were ready for the fight.
The early part of the game turned out to be just that, a bit of a dogfight. Both teams showed a certain amount of nerves and apprehension, and the match settled into a bit of a kicking game, with the two sides trying to gain territory to build on, but turning it more into ariel ping pong than anything else. Eventually though in the thirteenth minute, Cashel were penalised for not rolling away at a ruck, and Trinity fly half Matty Lynch opened the scoring. But, like buses, after waiting so long for one score, two came along almost together, and within minutes Cashel were level when Ben Twomey knocked over a penalty of his own to make the scores three all, and that’s how it lasted to the break.
Whatever was said at the break, really fired up the Cashel team. Maybe they had gotten over their surroundings. Maybe they’d finished watching the cricket. Who knows, but they came out in the second period possessed and took the game to their more illustrious opponents. And they got rewarded for their endeavours when Josh Pickering touched down for the games first try and Ben Twomey added the extras to make it ten to three for the men from Tipperary. Things got better midway through the half when they added a second penalty from a monster kick near their own half way line, and suddenly the finish line seemed to be in sight. The two teams then swapped penalties, leaving Cashel ten points ahead, sixteen to six, with just twelve minutes left on the clock. Then disaster struck.
And it was hard to see it coming. Because Cashel were in complete control of the game, and were inside the Trinity 22 looking for that one extra score that would probably have broken the spirit of their opponents that late in the game. But while trying to set up a rolling maul, they coughed up an unforced error, and the Trinity backs managed to run the ball almost the whole length of the pitch, before being held up in the corner. But they recycled the ball and while playing with a penalty advantage inched closer and closer to the Cashel line. The defending side began to concede penalties until inevitably they were penalised and given a yellow card. A minute later, the dam broke and the Dublin side touched down in the corner through Zach Baird, and although the conversion was wide, they suddenly had a foothold in the game. With the extra man now, that hold got even stronger when man of the match Matty Lynch touched down for a second try, and added the conversion to make it a one point game.
Just two minutes to go, the yellow card now up and Cashel returned to their full complement of players, they seemed to have steadied the ship, and got a hold of the football. The Munster rugby DNA kicked in and they snaffled it up their jumper, as they worked painstakingly closer once again to the Trinity line, not so much trying to attempt to add that insurance score, as to keep the ball as far from their own line as possible. But they lost it again and Trinity scorched down the field, eventually needing to be stopped by a foul thirty five meters from goal on the right hand side. The clock was in the red. Mattie Lynch was facing the team in red. He had the opportunity to write his name into the annals of history of the world’s oldest club. And he did it.
Straight and true like an arrow from his boot, an arrow to the heart of every Cashel player mentor and supporter, who knew that time was up on their game, their season and their dreams for another twelve months. They slumped to the ground, wet on a dry day. Wet from sweat and wet from tears, as the football rolled back down to the bottom of the hill for another year. The last kick of the game. The whistle blew and the commiserations began.
Did they deserve to be beaten like this? Never in a million years. But Cashel rugby doesn’t do feeling sorry for itself. It congratulated the victors, and clapped them off the pitch. They will be back, no doubt. Inch by inch they get better. Inch by inch they succeed.
Don’t bet against them reaching the top of their own rugby mountain next year.