Late Cotton try secures league success for Marist

Marist College 17 Sligo Grammar School 14

By Kevin Egan

The league title was not the silverware that head coach Sam Fogarty or his players would have dreamed about when they set about training at the start of the year. But the Marist’s status as serious contenders for a first Connacht Schools Senior Cup in 12 years was cemented when Thomas Cotton’s late try handed Sligo Grammar School their first senior knockout defeat in any competition since Covid.

“It’s been 12 years since we’ve won anything at senior level in the school. So many great players and great teams have come through the school, I was part of a team myself where Covid ruined our chances,” said Fogarty after his side’s recent win in Creggs RFC.

“This team, there’s a huge hunger this year, a lot of guys involved with the underage system in Connacht who got let go and have a point to prove. They love their school, they want to represent it and they want silverware.”

Fogarty suggested that these two schools will be perceived as the favourites for the Cup, and results throughout this league campaign would certainly back that up, and a three-point margin of victory would seem to suggest that this was a fiercely tight contest between two very different, but relatively even sides.

To a degree that was true, but Marist will feel encouraged by the fact that the conditions didn’t favour their ball-in-hand approach, and as the year progresses, they’ll be hopeful that their commitment to moving the ball out to their very talented back division early and often will pay dividends.

“We’re not the biggest of teams, we’re definitely lighter in the forwards so we have to go around teams. We backed our skills, they’re what got us to the final. The confidence shows and I’m proud of them for that,” Fogarty said.

For Sligo Grammar, the road to improvement looks very different. Mark Tempany at out-half and Diarmaid O’Connell at the base of the scrum are two immensely talented players and two natural leaders that can lead this team forward, but outside of that duo, the rest are relatively new to senior rugby.

Sligo Grammar would have been the happier side with 25 minutes of the first 35 played, as they were operating into the wind and still had kept Marist at bay up to that point.

Strong defensive work by the pack and a high number of handling errors from the Marist runners were key in keeping the game scoreless, but that changed as the dam broke before half-time.

Excellent handling from Tom Sheehan and Cotton put winger Kyle Mahon away twice, and each time he slalomed round the outside before touching down some 15 metres left of the post. Charlie O’Carroll’s two conversion kicks were missed, however, with one hitting the upright.

After the interval, Sligo could now gain a lot more ground with their kicking game, which in turn meant that their pack could begin to turn the screw.

O’Connell, the talisman of this team, drove at the line and reached out to touch the ball down just beyond the whitewash for the opening score, and another siege of the Marist line ended with Cathal Moffatt picking the ball off the base of a ruck and powering over for the lead score.

It should have been enough, and against a less capable back division, it would have been. Sligo played solid percentage rugby, asking tough questions of Andrew Henson in particular with some high bomb kicks that were brilliantly handled by the full-back.

The former Westmeath minor footballer also played a key role in the lead score, getting away a crucial offload to Cotton on the left sideline to allow the centre to sprint in and finish with five minutes to play.

“The weather played a huge part today, for both sides it was very slippy,” Fogarty said.

“Every ball was going through lads’ fingers and a lot of scrums and lineouts didn’t go to hand, so the two teams had to just grind it out, and it came down to the bounce of the ball at the end.”

For a long time now, the bounce of the ball hasn’t favoured the Marist in these big games, and while there is a lot of ground to cover before they can reclaim their place on the top of the pile in the west, recording a first win over the side that has taken control of the Connacht scene will be a huge boost to the Athlone side.

Player of the match: Andrew Henson was exactly what a team would want their full-back to be – reliable and brave under a high ball, defensively aware and sharp, and keen to make ground with ball in hand when the chance arose. Yet it would be impossible to look past Tom Sheehan, who made a lot of ground in really tight circumstances and created space out of nothing, time and again.

What’s next: The draw for the Senior Cup sees Marist College placed in Pool One alongside Summerhill and St Joseph’s, while Sligo Grammar will play Coláiste Iognáid (the Jes) and St Muredach’s. The final pool will see competition newcomers and dark horses Coláiste Éinde in with Garbally College and CBS Roscommon.

Scorers - Marist: K Mahon 2 tries; T Cotton 1 try; C O’Carroll 1 conversion. Sligo GS: D O’Connell and C Moffatt 1 try each; M Tempany 2 conversions.

Marist College, Athlone: Andrew Henson; Kyle Mahon, Thomas Cotton, Tom Sheehan, Phillip Finnan; Charlie O’Carroll, Owen Egan; Hugo Hannon, Evan McMickan, Ciarán West; Max O’Sullivan, Peter Bourke; Rueben Colleran, Matthew Turner, Kailin Blessing. Replacements: John Okegbenro for O’Sullivan (half-time), Jimmy Walshe for Finnan (h-t), Paul O’Sullivan for Colleran (57).

Sligo Grammar School: Ben O’Connor; Ben Lawler-Kerr, Bobby Hanrahan, Andrew Deegan, Andrew Hewson; Mark Tempany, Andrew Ryan; Cathal Moffatt, William Draper, James Winters O’Donnell; Bertie Bamber, Owen McNamara; Kamsi Mojekwu, Alastair Hewson, Diarmaid O’Connell. Replacements: Jayden Bosomtwe for McNamara (half-time), Mark Bradley for Winters O’Donnell (38), Jasper Gimena for O’Connor (44).

Referee: Cathal Roddy.