St Munchin's come up short despite stunning comeback in Munster Schools Senior Cup

ST MUNCHIN'S College came up agonisingly short in their bid to reach this season's Munster Schools Senior Cup final, despite producing a storming second half comeback against PBC, of Cork, at Musgrave Park on Wednesday.

When St Munchin's trailed their Cork opponents by 25 points, 10-35, some 12 minutes into the second half their prospects of reaching the decider looked slim indeed.

However, to their great credit, the Corbally student produced a stunning comeback, racking up 19 unanswered points, including scoring three tries, to half themselves to within six points of their rivals, 29-35.

St Munchin's piled on the pressure in the closing minutes in a desperate bid to secure the converted try which would have earned them a final place against either Crescent College Comprehensive or CBC. 

However, PBC repelled their best efforts, winning a penalty at the breakdown, in the final play of an absorbing contest to advance to the final.

Two converted tries had PBC 14-0 to the good after 25 minutes. St Munchin's badly needed to respond and the Limerick side did so in style with full-back Matt Te Pou scoring a stunning individual try, initially chipping the ball in behind a Pres' defender before volleying it with his boot and collecting it in the left corner to score a memorable individual try.

Back came Pres' with a third try to ease into a 21-5, before Oisin Minogue, son of former Ireland international Rosie Foley, powered over for a second five-pointer for the Limerick school, 21-10.

A fourth converted try from the Cork side had them enjoying a substantial 28-10 lead at half-time.

The situation got worse for Munchin's when Pres' bagged their fifth try of the game to lead 35-10 at half-time.

St Munchin's comeback began 14 minutes into the second half when the impressive Minogue struck for his second try of the game.

A third try for St Munchin's, this time scored by Gordon Wood, son of former Munster, Ireland and Lions hooker Keith, following a quick tap penalty, maintained their hopes of staging an unlikely comeback. Cillian O'Connor also converted for 35-22.

The unthinkable looked likely when Wood went over for his second try soon after with the successful conversion leaving six points between the sides.

However, unfortunately, for St Munchin's, time ultimately ran out on their hopes of producing their own version of the 'Great Escape'.

PBC: Ben O’Connor, James Wixted, Gene O’Leary Kareem, James O’Leary, Tom Coughlan, Harry Murphy, Liam Tuohy; Maurice Minogue, Michael O’Sullivan, Thomas McCarthy, Daniel Noonan, Cian Murphy, Fionn Roussel, Alexander Alderson, Rory O’Shaughnessy (Capt). Replacements: Max Dillon, Peter Wall, George O’Keeffe, Alex Davenport, Oscar Squires, Daniel Foley, Oscar Nangle, Scott Kelleher, John Wigginton Barrett, Luke Sisk O’Mahony.

ST MUNCHIN'S COLLEGE: Matthew Te Pou; Adam Cusack, Oisin Pepper, Gordon Wood, Tom Wood; Cillian O’Connor, Jake O’Riordan; Rían Burke, Peter Dougan, Tadhg O’Brien; Mark Walsh, Callum Black; Danny Williamson, Oisin Minogue, Liam Angermann. Replacements: Ben Noonan, Sean Rice, Oskars Vitolins, Billy Power, Tommy O’Driscoll, Tony Foley, Rory McDermott, Conor McCarthy, David Keane, Azad Mohammed.

REFEREE: Frank Murphy (IRFU)