Thurles made the even longer trip south to West Cork to face Skibbereen in round 9 of the of the Munster Junior Leaguehaving had their last outing in the competition against Bandon back on the 4th of January. This was a critical game for both sides given their respective league positions after both havinghad tough league campaigns on the results front. 

Thurles started this game brilliantly and were out of the blocks very quickly. With their first attacking foray in the Skib half, Thurles strung some good phases of play together working their way into the 22 before Fionn Fogarty cleverly put a grubber kick in behind the home defence for Sonny Dwyer to rush onto and score under the posts. Conversion added, it was 7 - 0 to Thurles after only 6 minutes. Thurles were in the ascendancy in this game for the first half hour, both in attack and defence and added to their total with arguably was the score of the game on 25 minutes. Thurles had an attacking scrum just inside the Skib half – an excellent backline rehearsed move saw Fionn Fogarty feed his centre Sonny Dwyer on a loop around sending him racing into the Skib half before releasing the supporting left winger Seam McGrath who had looped around from his wing to outstrip the home defence and score in the corner. Conversion missed Thurles led 12-0 after 25 minutes. Thurles didn’t have to wait long for their next score Fionn Fogarty broke up a Skib attach on his own 22 hacking down field, Paddy Mcgrath latch onto the loose ball hacking it on downfield and looked destined to score only to be denied by the Skib full back carrying the ball back over his own line to conceded a 5m scrum to Thurles. Thurles attacked well from the scrum and went through some forward phases before moving the ball through the backs for Seamie Holohan to swivel into the corner for Thurles third tryand with the conversion missed pushing the score out 17-0 with 30 minutes elapsed. Probably the pivotal moment in this game arrived on 32 minutes when Thurles cleared their lines well before Seam McGrath recovered the ball just on the Skib 22 – a deliberate knock by Skib prevented a possible Thurles scoring pass and probably should have earned a yellow card, ruled by the referee as being just a knock on. A scrum infringement gave Skib a penalty with which they attacked quickly from their own half. They attacked into the Thurles half after a couple of phases Thurles were caught very narrow in defence, identified by the Skib full back who floated an excellent cross field kick into acres of green grass on the Thurles left for his winger to gather unmolested and sprint home from 40 yards. This gave the home a visible lift. From the kick off Skib gathered the ball and the excellent Dave Shannon at full back for Skib launched one of his howitzer like clearances which was dealt with extremely poorly by the Thurles back field having been allowed to bounce and then a very weak kicked clearance gave Skib field position on the Thurles 22 Skib smelled blood and playing some simple direct physical rugby against a wilting Thurles defence, Skib within minutes of their first score , and from being on the ropes, were right back in the game just on the stroke of half time, when they crashed over for their second try close to the Thurles posts.  17 -14 with 39 minutes on the clock. Skib’s third try followed a fairly similar pattern to the second. Skib’s full back launched a long kick from his own 22, Thurles could only recover the ball deep in their own 22 and then launched a feeble return kick followed by a poor kick chase and missed tackle allowing the Skib full back to run back 30 metres into the Thurles half. Thurles conceded an offside penalty and tool it quickly running hard at the Thurles defence. Poor spacing and pillar defence on the side of a ruck 30m out in the middle of the field and two poor attempts at a tackle saw the Skib number 8 knife through the entire Thurles defence and score under the posts on the stroke of half time – in a devastating 5-minute period Skib scored 21 unanswered points and effectively swung the momentum of this game.

 

Thurles brought Jack Kavanagh and James Butler into the game at half time to replace Ger McCormack and John Shaw, and to their credit got straight back into the game, and an incredible twenty plus phases eventually saw James Butler crash over for Thurles 4th try, converted by James Maher to leave the score. This came at a physical cost with both Sam Quinlan and Fionn Fogarty having to lead the game shortly afterwards due to injurie to be replaced by Mark Cummins and Ed O’Gorman. Skibbereen were undaunted and given the basketball nature of this game it wasn’t at all surprising that they scored almost from the kick off. Thurles yet again failed to dela with the Skib kick off where they managed to retain the kick, Thurles conceded a penalty which was kicked into the corner – two or three pashes later Skib were near the Thurles posts to push the score out 26 – 24 with 52 minutes gone. Thurles responded and were back in front from a James Maher penalty after 53 minutes. But Skibbereen were back in control on 59 scoring easily again to push the score out to 31 – 27. Again, consistent phases by Skib and penalty concessions, and a yellow card allowed the field position for this as well poor exit attempts by Thurles on a couple of occasions despite playing with an assisting breeze. The next score had some very hard luck attached to it, a great kick clearance by Paddy McGrath gave Thurles good field position and a lineout on eth Skib 22, Thurles attacked well but Skib managed to knock an attempted off load back and counterattacked kicking the ball long, causing a foot rush down the fled with Thurles fully committed to the attack, resulting the pivotal 7 pointer and pushing the score out to 38 – 27 on 61 minutes. Thurles did get themselves back into it and had their final score of the game to put them in 2 bonus point territory with 5 minutes remaining with good finish close in from Jock Fogarty, converted by James Maher to close the gap to 38 – 34. With 5 minutes to go Thurles had to go for the 5 points but could not get out of their own half, due to ineffectual clearance kicks, and were lucky to survive another Skib try, disallowed for double movement. With the last play of the game a Thurles lineout maul was stripped 20m from their own line and Skib got in for an easy try to push the score out to 45- 34 with the last play of the game. 

Ger McCormack, Shane Nugent, John Shaw, Colin Nolan ,Jason Theron, Pete Kinane, Jock Fogarty, Sam Quinlan, , Stephen Shaw, Fionn Fogarty, Sean McGrath, Sonny Dwyer,Paddy McGrath, Seamie Holohan, James Maher. 

Subs: Jack Kavanagh (for Ger McCormack) James Butler (for John Shaw) Dan Lanigan Ryan (for Pete Kinane, Mark Cummins(for Sam Quinlan), Donnacha Ryan, Ciaran Murphy(for Shane Nugent), Evan Ryan, Ed O’Gorman (for Fionn Fogarty), Cian Ralph (for Seam Mcgarth)Dylan Shaughnessy(for James Maher).