Heart breaking last minute loss in the 1A Promotion Playoff   01/04/2019

30/03/2019 Leinster Division 1A Promotion Playoff Longford 11 Bective 12

By Tommy Butler Longford RFC PRO

Thanks to Willie Farrell for the pictures.

It was one of those days where sport both gives and takes away in equal measure.  Longford looked on course for promotion to Division 1A leading 11-09 well into injury time.  However, defeat was snatched from the jaws of victory by a well struck penalty kick by the Bective Out Half Ciaran Heneghan, which was the last kick of the match to give them victory by a single point.  It was a bitter pill to swallow for Longford, who played most of the rugby on the day and would have been full value for their victory.

The match as a whole was an enthralling tense affair from start to finish with two sides going at the game 100% in contrasting fashions.  Bective relied on kicking deep to Longford at practically every opportunity and then trying to pressure Longford into a mistake or giving away a penalty by pressure defence and flooding the break down.  Longford in contrast kept the ball in hand, bar one or two excellent probing kicks and on many occasions made great ground mainly through their hard carrying forwards.  Bective succeeded in slowing down Longford’s ball throughout the match and at times Longford found it hard to dial into the referee’s interpretation of the breakdown where Bective pushed things to its limit.

The first opportunity of the match came Bectives way with a shot on goal after six minutes where the referee awarded a penalty against Longford for holding on.  Heneghan was clearly a good kicker, as the kick from the 10 metre line had plenty of distance but luckily for Longford came back off the post and was cleared.  Incidentally, both the Bective 9 and 10 are originally North Kildare players.

Longford then laid siege to the Bective line for the next ten minutes, including a kick to the corner but unfortunately despite multiple phases and good pressure Longford could not cross the line.   However, Longford did not leave empty handed as Ryan McHugh slotted a penalty on 12 minutes to nudge them into a 3-0 lead.  It was then Bectives turn to put some pressure on Longford.  They kicked to the corner twice but the Longford defence held firm.  Indeed, the Longford lineout left Bective with very little clean ball from their lineout for the whole game.  Unfortunately, during this period Bective managed to get themselves on the scoreboard via a penalty to draw the scores even 3-3.  Longford again were in the ascendancy towards the end of the first half but could not convert the pressure into points.  So, all was to play for in the second half.  Indeed, Longford would play the second half with a small wind at their backs and playing down the slightly sloped pitch.

Both coaches would have told their troops to hold their nerve and up the intensity as all was to play for.  Indeed, Bective had a celebrity coach on this occasion with former Dragons/Grenoble coach Bernard Jackman having been drafted in to prepare them for the challenge of Longford.  He got a response from his temporary charges as Bective came out of the traps hard and were on top for the first fifteen minutes of the second half, which was their only real period of sustained dominance in the match.  They started by running the ball for the first time in the whole game, which immediately payed dividends earning them three points after two minutes.  They further stretched their lead to six points on 14 minutes.  Longford came right back into the game at this point and largely bossed the rest of the second half with Longford’s big ball carriers like Benny McManus, Derek Farrrell, Paul Gallogly and Kieran O’Gorman coming to the fore.  Longford had two difficult attempts on goal which were unsuccessful but it was third time lucky as Ryan McHugh knocked over a penalty on 24 minutes to draw the gap back to three points. 

The Bective loose head also took a trip to the bin at the same time due to repeated infringements.  Longford thought they had the breakthrough they had been pushing for on 32 minutes when Colm Glynn put Joe McGowan in for a try in the corner.  Unfortunately, the linesman disallowed it due to a forward pass.  However, Longford were not to be denied and from the resulting scrum they drove Bective off their own ball and were heading for the line before Bective collapsed the scrum and their scrum half extracted the ball from the scrum.  Many Longford supporters felt with Longford going forward at a rate of noughts that a penalty try would have been the fairest outcome.  However, the referee instead awarded a penalty to Longford, who made the brave decision to reset the scrum.  They drove the scrum towards the line with No. 8 Paul Gallogly picking at the base and crashing over for a well deserved try for Longford to take the lead with only five minutes of normal time remaining.  Unfortunately, the conversion was not successful, so Longford looked to close out the match with a two point lead. 

Bective came at Longford hard for the last five minutes and even took a tap penalty 10 metres out from Longford’s line in an attempt to crash over for a match winning score.  Longford defended superbly and thought they had won promotion after getting awarded a penalty for crossing in the Bective line.  Longford kicked to touch.  However, the referee adjudged the Longford throw as crooked.  This set up a sequence of pressure, which ultimately resulted in Bective being awarded a penalty wide on the right just outside the Longford 22 deep into injury time.  The Bective Out Half, Ciaran Heneghan lined up the kick and superbly converted to break Longford hearts and preserve Bectives place in Division 1A at Longford’s expense.  It was a bitter pill to swallow and left the short trip home to Longford feeling like a long one. 

One small silver lining is that Longford could still secure promotion if Enniscorthy, who are playing in a Round Robin versus the other Junior Provincial Champions, Instonians, Connemara and Clonmel secure promotion by beating all three (they won their first game away to Instonians) and the two Leinster teams in the mix for relegation from AIL Division 2C, Tullamore and Seapoint avoid the drop.  There are two games left to play in the Round Robin and the AIL, so all will become clear in two weeks’ time.

One of the great things about sport sometimes is ability to get straight back on the horse.  Longford have a great opportunity to do so in their Provincial Towns Cup Semi-Final versus Wicklow in Naas RFC next Sunday at 3 PM.

No matter what happens all of us are incredibly proud of what Glenn Baskett and his squad have achieved.  It all has the feeling of a club generally on the up.  To paraphrase Tommy Hilfiger ‘The road to success is not easy to navigate, but with hard work, drive and passion, it's possible to achieve the Longford dream’.

Longford Squad: P O’Gorman, H Connolly, D Quinn, B Stewart, B McManus, D Farrell, K O’Gorman, P Gallogly, N Farrell, D McHugh, L Harte, R McHugh, S Rodgers, J McGowan, I McCormack, C Glynn, L Brady, J Forde, F McGowan, P Molloy, D O’Brien & P Dardis. 

After match reaction from Longford RFC Head Coach Glenn Baskett

“Unbelievably disappointing out there today. Disappointing for the boys that have put in so much hard work to get to this point, and to lose so deep in injury time like that is a killer. But saying that we had talked before hand about how the game is about pressure, how you apply it and relieve it, and we didn’t finish those couple of chances we had created when we did apply pressure. We have to be honest with our decision making when we look back at those missed opportunities. We knew they were gonna target our back 3 through the air and I though we handled that really well. Our set piece went pretty well, we got our try off a couple of dominant scrums. And our defence was pretty good again, not conceding showed that. But it counts for nothing, and now we have to wait and see if Enniscorthy, Tullamore and Seapoint can do us a favour. And we have to park that now and get up for next Sunday in the semi against Wicklow. It’s a different opportunity and one we have to start to look at on Sunday.”











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