Page 91 - The Gonzaga Record 1990
P. 91
pres ure, our onl reward at half time experience gained by these boys will
wa 3 points from a Quinlan penalty. One stand them in good stead next season.
now n d, that against such opposition, Angus Fleming was elected Captain and
" e had not u ed our ad antage to the full. he proved to be an excellent leader.
Bel edere used the wind well and after The quad trained extremely hard from
much desperate defending we conceded October until the opening cup match in
a tr . with a lunging dive from one of February . They showed great
Bel edere ยท econd rows. We now had commitment, determinati on and spirit
to defend fo r the rest of the match except throughout this period and put in many
when a late break by centre, Alan Walsh, good perfo rmances leading up to the cup,
nearly caught out the Belvedere defence. incl uding two excellent wins again st St
The fi nal score. 4-3 refl ected the overall Andrews and St Paul s - our last
tightness of the encounter. friendlies of the season. However, the
And o a frustrating eason came to an loss of our hooker Eamon O 'Loin sigh
end . Mr Whirdy and Mr McCarthy were (broken leg) and our second row Catha!
surprisingly enough still around! The Garrad (broken fi nger) in these matches,
team would both like to thank and caused much d isruption in our
congratulate them on bringing a fourth preparation fo r the cup match. Sean
consecutive Senior Cup team to the Hayes moved from the back row into the
quarter fi nal stage. Lastl y, I would like hooking positi on and his determination to
to congratulate Philip Quinlan on winning learn the tricks of hi s new trade was
the Ensor Cup for all-round achi evement admirabl e. His performance in the cup
in rugby, and also Alan Walsh for match was outstanding.
collecting the Captain 's Cup fo r his full When the draw for the Cup was
participation and commitment to this released in November we learned that our
year's rugby season. first round opponents would be Wesley
Coll ege, a much fa ncied team, which
Mark Carney (Senior 5)
included six of the team we had defeated
in last season's semi-final. By the time
the Cup match came around the team had
grown in confidence and believed that
JUNIOR CUP TEAM they could give Wesley a tough match.
1990 The match was pl ayed on 5 February
at Danum in windy conditions which
This year's J.C.T. had a difficult task in made constructi ve football difficult.
trying to follow in the footsteps of a When the teams took the pitch it was
successful team of the previous year. obvious that Wesley had a phys ical
Thirty-six boys attended the first training advantage. Despite thi s we made a very
session in September. This included just good start to the match - playing with
one boy from last year's team (William the wind, we managed to put Wesley
FitzGerald). Team building as usual took under consid erabl e pressure. Two
time and patience but was made more penalties from William FitzGerald gave
difficult by injury to key players. The us a 6-4 half- time lead.
team playing without William FitzGerald In the second half Wesley used the
and Jude O'Reilly for most of the first wind advantage to great effect and ran out
term struggled in many of the early 14-6 winners. However, the Gonzaga
season friendlies. After much trial and team could indeed be proud of a
error a squad of 21 players was selected courageous performance against a very
at the end of October to prepare for the strong Wesley team, which lost narrowly
cup campaign. This squad was to Pres. Bray in the Cup Final.
strengthened by three boys from the All in all it was an enj oyable season.
under 14's, David Hayes, Danny Horan
and Cillian Barry - it is hoped the Bobby Byrne

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