Challenge Cup: Newcastle West 22 - Mallow 23

Mallow RFC travelled to Newcastle West for their first competitive game of the 2008/2009 season on Sunday 14 Sep. This game was one of four in the province to kick off the Munster Junior Clubs Challenge Cup.
In wet conditions, handling errors were common through out the contest, and the referee was kept very busy as both teams struggled with the new laws, especially at the breakdown.
Newcastle West opened the scoring within the first five minutes, their intent was clear early on to kick all penalties within range as their outhalf was very accurate. Mistakes from Mallow allowed Newcastle West to extend their lead further with two more penalties before Mallow's Andrew Cashman kept Mallow in touch with two penalties of this own.
Towards the end of the first half Mallow were camped on the Newcastle West line, but failed to protect the ball in the ruck and allowed Newcastle West to counter attack from their own line and score a try against the run of play, which they duly converted to lead Mallow 16 points to 6 at half time. However this Mallow team didn’t panic and began to show a higher level of fitness and determination, with Michael O Connor's quick tap and go resulting in Mallows first try soon after the restart. The Mallow lineout was functioning superbly with hooker Frank Thornton communicating well with his jumpers, and out half Andrew Cashman continued to boss the opposition with well placed kicks. Cashman added a further penalty to level the scores but Newcastle went into the lead again and surly thought they had done enough to win the game when they kicked two more penalties from long range to leave the score at 22 - 16 in the closing stages of the game. The Mallow pack continued to extend pressure on the Newcastle line and forced the Newcastle defence to make tackle after tackle, that eventually opened up the defence for Andrew Cashman to break behind the cover, and put Brendan O'Brien through to touch down under the posts. Cashman converted to give Mallow a one point lead over their hosts in the dying minutes of the game. Mallow will feel that they were lucky to progress to the second round of this competition, but they will build on the victory. Mallow now face a home game against Shannon’s St Senans next weekend, and look forward to their first home competitive game. Mallow Team Neil Lucey, Frank Thornton, Jason Sheehan, Gavin Lynch, Ivan Bolster, Micheal Lynch, Jim Molony, Michael O'Connor, Brian O'Connor, Andrew Cashman, Anthony Barrett, Gavin O Keeffe, Brendan O'Brien, Rory McSherry, Kieran O Gorman.(Subs: Donal Lucey, Ray Roche, Daniel McCarthy, Graham Kelly, Liam Kelleher)