Wexford Wanderers seconds beat league leaders Coolmine

Wexford Wanderers 15 Coolmine 7

WEXFORD WANDERERS seconds have impressed of late, and Sunday saw the visit of the league leaders Coolmine to Park Lane in the curtain-raiser on a great day of rugby.

An injury to Mick Codd earlier in the week saw a like-for-like replacement with the return of Ciarán Joyce to the side.

The visitors started brightest, creating numbers on the outside of the Wexford defence and powering over for the opening score. An excellent conversion from the touchline gave Coolmine a 7-0 lead.

In a game of tough tackles and plenty of defensive effort from both sides, the second score came just before half-time. Wexford opted for the posts following a penalty for repeated infringements by the visitors, and a yellow card, with Mark Power stepping up and slotting between the posts for a 7-3 scoreline at the break.

Playing the first ten minutes of the second-half with an extra man, Wexford built up pressure on the Coolmine defence. Moving away from the one-off running that provided little impact in the first-half, Wexford began to spread the ball wide through the hands.

Cian Connolly broke the line to pop a pass to Ciarán Joyce who ran in Wanderers’ first try, with Power adding the extras.

A tense battle followed all the way into the closing stages, and the home side sealed the victory as Power touched down in the corner following a nice run and pop pass from Seán Cullen.

The conversion from the touchline was narrowly missed by Power, but a full-time score of 15-7 saw Wanderers impressively defeat the league leaders at home.

Alan Hawkins edged Power to the man of the match award, after another strong display of tackling by the young scrum-half.

Wanderers: C. Connolly, E. Walsh, S. Dempsey, D. Kehoe, C. Dempsey, E. Carroll, S. Cullen, T. Barry, A. Hawkins, R. Curtin, J. O’Hagan, C. Joyce, M. Power, M. Harney, P. Gannon (capt.). Subs. – K. Tarnawski, D. Murphy, J. Gannon, M. Coleman, A. Ryan, S. Thomas, D. Byrne, C. Burke, S. Walker.