Munster Schools Senior Cup final: CBC 17 PBC 10
After years of hurt and hunger inflicted by their cross-city rivals, CBC’s incredible 17-point comeback saw them crowned Munster Schools Senior Cup champions once more.
Trailing 10-0, the game turned on Darragh Prenter’s try-saving intervention to stop PBC from scoring a 49th-minute clincher.
With that swing in momentum, Charlie O’Shea and Leo O’Leary ran in tries to deliver a record-equalling 32nd title which ties their great rivals and denied them three in a row.
For the likes of halfbacks Christopher Barrett and captain O’Shea, plus winger Alex O’Connell, they had gone through three consecutive final defeats against Pres to get here: the 2022 Junior Cup followed by the 2023 and 2024 Senior Cups. They unleashed all of that frustration into the final 20 minutes.
They got away with a major let-off in the opening minutes. Daniel Murphy raced away to the corner but it took a while for the crowd’s celebrations to quieten as referee Tomás O’Sullivan called a forward pass against Alex Moloney.
Pres are dangerous from all distances and they countered to strike for a 16th-minute breakthrough. Bobby O’Callaghan, one of the new additions since the semi-final, made the initial 60-metre break. After losing some ground, Pres went wide to the winger again. This time, starting on halfway, there was no stopping him.
Daniel Murphy’s conversion made it 7-0 and the goal-kicker added another three from an offside penalty as Pres began to get value for all their pressure.
Heading into the second half with the wind, Christians were far from down and out but they had to survive a close shave. As Liam Hegarty looked to crash over, brilliant maul defence from Prenter held him up.
Having escaped a killer score, Christians came straight down the field. Daire O’Callaghan’s pace created the opportunity and Prenter appeared to have crossed but was prevented from grounding the ball by Rickey Barrett.
Christians piled on with two tap-and-go penalties before going wide through Corkery for O’Shea to score. The captain added the extras to cut the deficit to 10-7.
Prenter perhaps thought he’d pinched the lead score but O’Sullivan had whistled the play back for a knock-on.
From that scrum, though, O’Leary intercepted a telegraphed Pres move and raced away to score under the posts with 64 minutes on the clock. O’Shea made it 14-10.
He kicked a penalty for a seven-point cushion after their advancing maul was stopped and Hegarty sinbinned.
After an early pitch invasion, the field was cleared for another O’Shea penalty, which drifted wide. But they had done enough.
Scorers: CBC: Tries: C O’Shea, L O’Leary; Cons: C O’Shea 2; Pen: C O’Shea. PBC: Try: B O’Callaghan; Con: Daniel Murphy; Pen: Daniel Murphy.
CBC: C Cournane; D O’Callaghan, L O’Leary, C Corkery, A O’Connell (B McCarthy 56); C O’Shea (capt), C Barrett (Z Seymor 70); S Fitzpatrick, D Prenter, C Hughes (C Wallace 42); R O’Sullivan (H McCarthy 38), D Mac Coitir; C Galvin, J O’Callaghan, I Morton.
PBC: R Barrett; B O’Callaghan (E Dooley 33), A Moloney, J O’Leary (capt), Daniel Murphy; D Fitzgerald, R Byrd; F O’Sullivan (D Higgins 70), D Higgins (L Hegarty 35), D Sheehy (M Fitzgerald 65): O Dillon (M O’Toole 69), D Foley (S MacFarlane O’Shea 47); Denis Murphy, C Bohan, R MacFarlane O’Shea.
Referee: T O’Sullivan (MAR).
