Ormond primed to get their hands on Munster Senior Cup

RUGBY: Bank of Ireland Munster Senior Challenge Cup Final Preview

By Shane Brophy

NENAGH ORMOND v OLD CRESCENT

Thomond Park

Sunday, 16th March

Kick-off @ 2.30pm

The storied history of the Munster Senior Challenge Cup goes back as far as 1886, and it will get a new chapter on Sunday when Nenagh Ormond and Old Crescent will add their name to the trophy.

Bruff in 2011 were the last club to add their name to the impressive trophy which has just eleven different winners.

Nenagh Ormond and Old Crescent have been in the final before, the Limerick side on three occasions, whereas Nenagh Ormond’s is more recent, just two years ago in fact when they lost to a last gasp penalty to Young Munster in the decider.

When the Nenagh players and coaching staff left Thomond Park that night, they must have wondered if that was their chance to make history but to get back there in two years shows the maturity within the group who took the positives from that performance to take their game to a new level.

They narrowly missed out on promotion from division 2A of the AIL later that season but made the step up a year later and have taken another big leap this year, lying second in the table, and all but assured of a place in the promotion playoffs to division 1A.

However, the focus this week will be on winning the Munster Senior Challenge Cup whereas unlike 2023, they will go into this game as favourites against an Old Crescent side that are a division below them in the AIL.

However, they are extremely familiar with the Limerick side having come up against them on a regular basis in the league in recent seasons, with their clashes of a spikey variety at times as Old Crescent looked to quell the upstarts from Tipperary up the M7 motorway.

Old Crescent currently lie in seventh place in the third tier of the AIL, having recorded five wins from their fifteen games so far, but should avoid relegation. They progressed to this stage by emerging from a group that contained Dolphin and Midleton, before accounting for Clonmel in the semi-final. All three opponents ply their trade in division 2C of the AIL whereas Nenagh’s route to the final was much tougher, emerging from a group that contained Highfield, Shannon, and particularly Cork Constitution, whom Nenagh put to the sword last September in a manner which showed the Tipperary side can compete with the best.

The semi-final last month was a repeat of the 2023 final against Young Munster, in their own backyard, but Nenagh once again showed they are a match for the best in the country on their day with a last gasp 32-32 victory.

Despite being short a number of key players incluing centre Willie Coffey and tight-head prop Colm Skehan, it proved just how much the Nenagh squad has developed over the past two years.

With both players in the running to play in this Sunday’s final, the Nenagh Ormond coaching team will have extremely tough job in selecting the matchday squad that will get the honour of lining out. Some players that have been key to their journey to the final won’t even get a chance to tog, including prop Jack O’Keeffe who is ruled out with a knee injury so Skehan’s return, and he played for the seconds last weekend, is timely.

Mikey Doran, Dylan Murphy, and Colm Skehan should start in the front row, ahead of skipper Kevin O’Flaherty and Jake O’Kelly in the engine room, and they have back-up in the shape of Craig Hannon and Fionn O’Meara.

The back-row in particular is loaded with John O’Flaherty, John Healy and Rob Buckley starting last time out against Old Belvedere, while they can also call on Evan Murphy, Joe Coffey and John Brislane, while Jake O’Kelly is versatile enough to play there also.

Nicky Irwin and Ben Pope should start at 9 & 10 but Charlie O’Doherty is doing everything possible to start at scrum half, but his versatility in terms of playing at full-back should see him one of the replacements.

Willie Coffey was targeting this game as a return from a head injury sustained at the end of last year. It will be interesting to see if he goes straight back into centre as Angus Blackmore and Conor McMahon have done well in his absence. If he does get the nod, McMahon will likely move to the wing with one of Davy Gleeson or Conor O’Shaughnessy dropping out, with Josh Rowland providing the experience at full-back.

The occasion that was the 2023 final played around St Patrick’s Day was so good that the Munster Branch have retained it as the final date which should attract a big crowd on the Bank Holiday Weekend for two clubs that don’t get to play in this final often, and one of which will make history.

If Nenagh Ormond play to their ability, it is hard to not to see captain Kevin O’Flaherty lifting the Cup on Sunday afternoon, but one thing is for sure, they won’t be putting the cart before the horse.