St Mary’s Cooke up a storm in Division One

FOLLOWING their impressive win over Buccaneers in the AIL Cup the previous week, St Mary’s Women’s Rugby team turned in another strong performance to beat Cooke 17-29 in their AIL Division One clash at Shawsbridge on Sunday.

The opening quarter of an hour saw St Mary’s continually drive towards the try line and open the scoring with a try in the corner by Gráinne Egan.

The conversion was missed and Cooke came back fighting at the restart as St Mary’s found themselves on the backfoot for several minutes.

A quickly taken tap-penalty less than five metres from the try line saw captain Shirelle Wilson restore parity.

St Mary’s continued to build phases and hold possession as their forwards dominated, culminating in another try from the outstretched hand of Egan with Saidhbhe O’Riordan tagging on the extras to propel the Templeville Road side 5-12 in front by the halftime break.

Into the second half, Cooke’s Amy Davis intercepted a Mary’s pass and ran from the half-way line to score a try under the posts.
With the conversion comfortably executed, the teams were level once more at 12-12.

Mary’s responded quickly with another two tries from Shayne Richardson and a young Kathy Baker who continued to build upon a strong performance last week, with O’Riordan’s boot ringing true twice more to help make it 12-26.

Cooke did register another try between the posts through prop Sorcha MacLaimhin, but a missed conversion left Mary’s nine points ahead.

The visitors continued to dominate the game in the second half, push-ing Cooke back and shutting down their game.

And with two minutes remaining, the referee signalled a penalty for offside just inside the Cooke 22, O’Riordan again doing the honours.

Bolstered by another fine result, Mary’s will now turn their attention to the visit of UL Bohemians to Templeville Road on Sunday.