Exiles Under-19s Lose To Leinster

The Exiles opened the season with an Under-19 fixture against Leinster last Sunday. The game was played at the excellent facilities of the Oratory School near Reading.

The Exiles XV settled first but early dominance was only rewarded with a penalty from Elliott O’Brien. Leinster then came into the game by establishing dominance in the lineout from which they established territorial advantage. They were awarded a penalty try after a try-preventing tackle in the air, which led to the Exiles being reduced to 14 men. The try was converted by former Exile Matt Keville. Although O’Brien kicked another – and long-range – penalty, Leinster used their numerical advantage to good effect and drove over from a lineout, converted by Keville. O’Brien showed his place-kicking consistency with another penalty to make the half-time score 14-9.

The rain and a resultant wet ball had an effect on the quality of the second half, compared with the first, but both teams had their periods of dominance. Leinster extended their lead with another converted try resulting from a forwards drive from a lineout. When Leinster were reduced to 14 men, after a sin-binning, the Exiles had a very good period when a little more composure in attack would almost certainly have led to a try, but the final score was 21-9 in the visitors’ favour.

For the Exiles there was overall satisfaction with the performance, considering that the squad had only the previous day for preparation for the game. Seamus McKimm led by example, Giles Goatly produced his usual good technical performance at loosehead, Sean Dougall showed a lot of good touches and put in some critical tackles, and both Fergus Knox and Charlie Ingall put in some thrusting runs in the centre, with the latter probably being the Exiles man-of-the-match.

Exiles U-19s: Giles Goatly, Joe MacManus, Matt Newman; Peter Bradley, Joe Thompson; Sean Dougall, Seamus McKimm, Chris Tuck; Sam Ryan, Elliott O’Brien; Harry de Stacpoole, Fergus Knox, Charlie Ingall, Lewis Collier; James Mitchell.

Replacements used: Craig Kelly (2), Charlie Allum (3), Sean Barwick (6), Tom James (9), Daniel Porter (14), Richard Clancy (15).

Coaches: Brian Farrell & Henry Diamond
Manager: Ces Shaw