Saturday saw the visitors playing against a strong wind in an opening half that got off to a great start. Corinthians began by getting into a good attacking position which lead to the home side giving away a penalty converted by Dave Clarke in his first starting away game. Following this, with loose play from Corinthians, Waterpark managed to turn over the ball and were rewarded with a penalty which was converted by winger Richard Santose after 10 minutes of play. This completed the Waterpark tally on the scoreboard for the day. In the 17th minute, after Waterpark were penalised, a quick ball was taken by scrum half Mike Roche who passed out to Cian Begley who then found Shane Geraghty on his shoulder who in turn got over the try line for the 1st try of the day leaving the score at 3-8 when the conversion was missed. The scrums were scrappy at times throughout, with both sides being found guilty of wheeling but on the 30th minute a huge scrum by the visitors turned the ball over. The ball was picked up by Shane Geraghty, he then got the ball away to out half Dave Clarke who fed out to Kieran Dolan who got over for the try. This try went unconverted leaving the score at 3 – 18. The next turn of play saw referee Dermot Maloney sin binning centre Dave Phelan which allowed Roche to get a quick ball out again to James Buckley for yet another try. This left the half time score at 3-18. Five minutes into the second half, with Waterpark in disarray, Mike Roche got the ball out to centre Wayne Williams who scored in the corner. From the resulting dropout Corinthians Pat Cunningham collected the ball, released to Roche who then got his back line moving with Classens finishing off under the posts. This try was converted by Dave Clarke with the score now at 3-30. Several changes were made by both sides with Waterpark stepping up their defense and they started to take on the visitors. However the home side were unable to capitalise on this as much as winger Craig Doyle and full back Kieran Howlan endeavoured. It did appear that the visitors thought they had enough done at this point and sat on their laurels until the 75th minute when Roche again made a great break getting ball out to sub Ronnie Ferguson who drew cover and got Buckley in for a second try which Clarke again converted. At this point Waterpark were decimated resulting in Classens and Roche getting in for great individual tries leaving the visitors facile winners with final score 3-49. Whilst it’s sad to see Waterpark relegated after flying the flag for the sunny south east it serves the purpose of helping to keep Corinthians at the top of division 3. Corinthians now look forward to a Junior cup final against Monivea next Sunday at the Sportsground at 3pm and the following week sees the seniors playing fellow division 3 table top contenders Queens at home on April 11th.
