The Tribesmen began the defence of their ROI and All Ireland trophies with a tough away encounter in blustery conditions against the Athy Sharks in Kildare. Both teams were a little rusty in the initial exchanges but still managed some enterprising plays and the Sharks were unlucky not to go ahead after 5 minutes when their left centre threw a loose pass out wide and with no one to collect, the ball went into touch. The Tribesmen then had to show steely resolve in defence as they were forced into repeat goal line dropouts. However, they soon got into their stride when big forward Emmet Grehan registered the Tribesmen first points of the season with a try after 15 minutes and with Peter O'Neill converting, it gave the Tribesmen a 6 point lead. The Galway men continued pressing for openings and some clever interplay between captain Anthony Leifi and Conor Loughrey resulted in Loughrey scoring his debut try for the Tribesmen. O'Neill added the 2 points to give the Tribesmen a 12 point lead.
The Sharks were not going to roll over though and they registered their first try after 25 minutes after some sustained pressure near the Tribesmen line and with the conversation added this made the score 12-6 to the visitors. The Sharks continued to dominate this period with some strong running and good field position but a break down the left side by Anthony Leifi was followed by an intuitive long inside pass to support runner Conor Loughrey, which resulted in Loughrey's 2nd try. With the missed conversion the scores were 16-6 to the Tribesmen and this is how it remained till half time.
With the resumption of play the Tribesmen carried on where they finished the first half and a break by James 'Junior' Kennedy produced his first try of 2017. With another missed conversion, this put the scores at 20-6. The early second half try seemed to prompt the Kildare men to raise their game and with faster ruck plays and a more coordinated attack they registered a couple of tries in quick succession and at the mid-point of the second half the match could not have been tighter at 20-16.
The Tribesmen, however stuck to their game plan and continued to work for each other and were rewarded after 70 minutes when Peter O'Neill scored and converted his own try. From the resulting kickoff, the Tribesmen regathered the ball and Nicholas Clark found a gap and touched down to extend the lead to 30-16. The Sharks then had a late flurry and registered a further 2 tries and 1 conversion which made the scores 30-26 to the Tribesmen and this is how the game finished.
The Tribesmen now look forward to welcoming the West Dublin Bears to Galway next Saturday (20th) for the first home game of the season. You can catch all the action from 2pm onward at South Park, The Claddagh (The Swamp)
