Crescent Comprehensive booked their place in the all-Limerick Munster Schools cup final on St Patrick’s Day when they ran out comfortable winners against Castletroy at Rosbrien.
Although the game produced three tries many scoring chances were fritted away by both in what was a game that lacked continuity with many handling errors.
Major worry
Crescent will meet Ardscoil Rís in the final but they will have to do better than this time and they face a major worry in that top winger Calvin Nash had to retire with a shoulder injury after making a powerful tackle after 18 minutes.
Crescent also have discipline problems to iron out with two of their players being shown yellow cards.
Outsiders Castletroy battled bravely to the end, scored a try in the last five minutes and almost got another but by then the outcome was clear.
Outhalf Mark McCarthy got Castletroy off to a a great start when he had plenty of time to drop a goal after five minutes.
Crescent outhalf Fionn McGibney tied it up with a penalty after 12 minutes and once Seán Fitzgerald had a Crescent try, converted by Gibney, after 24 minutes it was a lead that Crescent never lost. Cormac Blake broke on the blindside from a scrum, passed to Jason O’Sullivan who sent Fitzgerald over.
Another Gibney penalty made it 13-3 at the interval.
But it was Crescent who worked the best try of the game after 10 minutes. Will Leonard and fellow centre JJ O’Neill combined for the latter to touchdown and again Gibney converted and he then tacked on two penalties to make it 23-3. A late try by Ronan Murphy was consolation for the efforts of Castletroy.
