Clonakilty adult women’s team makes comeback, but Skibb defeated in All-Ireland Junior Cup

WEST Cork women’s rugby clubs Clonakilty and Skibbereen experienced contrasting fortunes last weekend.

Sunday was another historic occasion in Shannonvale where Clonakilty RFC fielded a women’s senior team for the first time in many years.

Building on their thriving underage schoolgirls’ and youths’ set-up, Clon seniors took on Midleton in a Munster Women’s Senior Open Cup tie. The hosts led 10-7 at the interval thanks to Izzy Grogan and Caoimhe Murphy tries. Midleton hit back in the second period however, scoring two tries of their own to move into a 17-10 lead.

It took a late Emma Lovell try and Anna O’Hea conversion to tie the score 17-17 at the final whistle. Extra-time was needed to decide the outcome where the visitors proved too strong and crossed the whitewash three additional times. Anna O’Hea responded with a late Clonakilty try but it couldn’t prevent a 34-24 loss.

Despite the result, Clonakilty RFC’s welcome return to the adult women ranks bodes well for the West Cork club’s future.

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Skibbereen Women’s RFC kicked off their 2023/24 campaign with a tough opener at home to Tuam-Oughterard in an All-Ireland Junior Cup quarter-final at Skibbereen on Sunday.

Without a competitive game under their belts and fielding a new-look, youthful line-up, Skibbereen unsurprisingly fell to a 45-7 defeat. Averyl Condell scored the West Cork club’s solitary try; a superb intercept breakaway effort converted by Emma Connolly.

‘Skibbereen are rebuilding this year, we have new management and have lost a lot of our starting fifteen from last year,’ Condell told The Southern Star.

‘Not making excuses but that was an incredibly tough first game of the season for any club let alone a young Skibbereen team that hadn’t yet played a competitive game together.’

Condell was delighted with how her team responded to a difficult opening half against an established Tuam-Oughterard setup.

‘To put things into perspective, Tuam-Oughterard scored 40 points in the first half but we restricted them to 5 in the second half,’ Condell added.

‘So the big positive to take away from that is that we are a team that fights and believes in ourselves. We showed that in the second half, a time when Tuam-Oughterard used an abundance of subs and we had only substitute available.

‘To be able to hold them to five points and the fact we were camped on their line for long periods, we just couldn’t find that final killer pass. Looking back, we probably showed them too much respect in the first half but corrected things in the second half.’

Despite the loss, new manager Gordon O’Dwyer has plenty of raw material to work with in the months ahead as a new-look Skibbereen will hope to build on their encouraging second-half display.

‘Look, nobody would want an All-Ireland quarter-final in their opening match of the season,’ Averyl Condell concluded. ‘We still managed to produce some great passages of play. We allowed Tuam-Oughterard to dictate things but the girls learned so much from that game and were delighted with how well we performed in the second half. Skibbereen will take this defeat on the chin and know what we need to work on going forward.’