Dundalk travelled to league leaders on back of two disappointing home defeats to Skerries and Garda in recent weeks and managed to produce a very committed and much improved performance for 60 minutes against a very strong and well drilled Newbridge side before running out of steam and allowing Newbridge run in 5 tries in the closing 20 mins.
It didn’t start very well for Dundalk as Newbridge scored their 1st try in the very first minute after a quickly taken free kick at the lineout by Newbridge caught Dundalk’s defence sleeping and they were 7-0 up. To Dundalk’s credit they responded very well to this early setback and managed to make their way down to the Newbridge 22 through a number of penalties but strong Newbridge defence managed to force a turnover and they cleared their lines.
The remainder of the half was very tight with both defences on top with Alan McHugh, Kevin Barry and Ciaran Sloane putting in big efforts. However Newbridge eventually breached Dundalks defence right on half time and an excellent touchline conversion left the half time score at 14-0 to the home side.
Dundalk started the second half really well and won a penalty on Newbridge’s 22 however the kick at goal was missed by Sam Mulligan. After this it was all one way traffic and Dundalk got tired and started falling off tackles. Newbridge were able to offload easily out of tackles and managed to run a number of soft scores to pull away from Dundalk and the scoreline gave a rather unfair reflection of Dundalk’s effort beforehand.
There is no game for the seconds this week and they resume the league with an away trip to Enniscorthy on December 3rd
Chris Brady, Brian Igoe, Declan McCabe, Diarmuid Sloane, Ciaran Sloane, Greg Whately, Alan McHugh, Kevin Barry, Gareth Herr, Sam Mulligan, Will Luaki, Donal Clare, Gerry Carroll, Errol Boyle, Gerry Smyth. Subs. Niall Browne