Report by Moss Dineen -ICRU International Secretary.

Leinster Colleges 44pts Ulster Colleges 24pts  

Notwithstanding the rather cold and overcast afternoon at Monkstown RFC, Sydney Parade, Dublin, there was plenty to hold the attention in this festive offering. Ulster Colleges aiming to win the Irish Colleges Interprovincial Championship for the first time had begun brightly with Josh Devitt touching down beside the posts with barely a minute gone in the game. But Leinster Colleges were soon back in contention with former Irish Schools outhalf Brian Collins finding the distance on three occasions before a break by Conor Hogan set up Craig Morrin for Leinster's opening try on 26 minutes. Leinster crossed the Ulster line once more before the break after Darragh Fanning had cut the Ulster defence with a decisive run before passing to Laurcan Kavanagh to lead 19-5.

The standard of rugby reached new heights in the second half with attacking end to end play by both teams that was a joy to behold in the modern kicking game. Ulster got themselves right back into the game immediately on the restart when scrumhalf Andrew Semple mad a break and fed his City of Derry team mate out half Mark O’Connor to score a try out wide which he converted himself. From a difficult angle. This try was quickly followed by another Ulster try by No 8 Ali Birch after a powerful run O’Connor converted to leve the scores at 19pta all.

Collins restored Leinster's lead with his fourth penalty on 52 minutes, the tide turned once more and having threatened the Ulster line in successive moves, Leinster went over for what proved the decisive score when the impressive Ian Leonard powered his way over just short of the hour mark. Leinster Colleges were now top and some great back movement created space for Fanning to score. The result was sealed with ten minutes to go when Max-Rantz McDonald scored a wonderful individual try with a scintillating 70 metre run breaking several tackles before scoring under the posts with Collins converting. Ulster to their credit never gave up and came back strongly near the end with a try from Andrew Ferguson. Leinster completed the scoring with the final move of the game when Barry McLaughlin scored a try after a well worked move.

The President of the IRFU John Lyons presented Leinster Captain Cian Culleton with the ICRU Inter Provincial Trophy and said ”I was most impressed by the standard of 3 rd Level and the skill levels shown by both teams. The attitude of both sets of players to commit to attacking rugby was a joy to watch, I would like to thank the Irish Colleges Rugby Union Executive for the outstanding work they do in not only organising representative rugby at Provincial and National Level but also running Wednesday Rugby on an All Ireland League basis. I look forward to their home International games this season against the French and English Students”.

Scorers forLeinster: C Morrin, L Kavanagh, I Leonard, C Hogan, M Rantz-McDonald, B McLoughlin try each, B Collins 4 pens, 1 con. Scorers for Ulster: J Devitt, A Birch, A Ferguson try each, M O'Connor try, 2 cons
Leinster Colleges: Mark Geraghty, Conor Hogan, Craig Morrin, Laurcan Kavanagh, Darren Fanning, Brian Collins, Sean Treacy, Ian Leonard, Cian Culleton, Mark Hamilton, Nathan Lawless, Robert Smith, John Downey, Eeoghan Nihill, John Dever
Subs: O'Shea for Treacy, Joe Gorman for Cian Culleton, David Toman for Nihill, Barry McLoughlin for Collins, Max Rantz-McDonald for Morrin, Gary Miller for Smith.

Ulster Colleges: David McIlwaine, Josh Devitt, David Funson, Peter Elliott, Alan Smyth, Andrew Semple, Andrew Ferguson, Michael Bradford, Neil Simpson, Mick Dunleavy, Andrew Kerr, Matthew Irvine, Adam Cupples, Ali Birch
Subs: Jamie Wilkinson for Bradford, Steven Morton for Ferguson, Mark Riddell for Dunleavy, Jon Brown for Semple, Scott Browne for Smyth, Ricky McCarthy for Elliott, Peter Smyth for Irvine
Referee: David Keane (IRFU)