Thurles injuries mount as they suffer heavy defeat to Sundays Well

Munster Junior Rugby League 

Thurles RFC 10

Sundays Well 48

Thurles resumed their league campaign with an away fixture on the hallowed artificial turf of Musgrave Park in Cork City against Sundays Well in a rare Saturday fixture at this level.

Thurles acceding to a home team request to play the game on a Saturday, something Thurles’s more famous opposition would have regularly done when competing at various levels of the All-Ireland Senior League throughout their long history before making the drop to Junior rugby last year and setting up a first-ever competitive first team fixture between both clubs.

With a cluster of teams in the league table from fourth to eight stuck on six wins and five losses and the league having been clinched already by Thomond with two games remaining, the only prize at stake was points towards top-four status and a tilt at the All-Ireland Cup Competition next year.

When the league fixtures were announced last year this is one that the team and management alike would have felt was a long shot, given Sundays Well’s stated determination and recruitment to secure senior status as quickly as possible.

However, Well have also shown some indifferent away form of late and before yesterday had a similar win record to Thurles albeit they had only lost Thomond on their home patch so far this year, so it was always going to take a big performance from the away team to get something out this game.

It doesn’t get any easier for Thurles, with a growing injury list and some players playing although not fully fit as they welcome league champions Thomond to Loughtagala next week in their penultimate game of the league.

They will have to be much improved to prevent a similarly comprehensive defeat.

Thurles RFC: Ger McCormack, Shane Nugent, John Shaw, Luke Fogarty, Colin Nolan, Mark Cummins, Peter Kinane, Sam Quinlan, Ciaran Ryan, Seamus Holahan, Jack Flanagan. Cathal Hayes, Sonny Dwyer, Luke Fogarty, Sean McGrath, Paddy McGrath.

Subs: Ciaran Murphy(for Shane Nugent), Jack Kavanagh(Ger McCormack), Donnacha Ryan(Mark Cummins), Noah Mellor(Seamus Holohan), Andrew Bourke (Peter Kinane), Danny Diamini, Kieran O’Hagan, Eoghan Dwyer(Sean McGrath).