RFC Lottery
The numbers drawn on 12th  June  - the numbers drawn were 15, 30 and 35. The jackpot of €5,900 was not won. The following won €25 each: Michael Riordan, Dublin; John Love, Old Chapel; D. Walsh, Price Savers; Michael Twomey, Innishannon; Liam Horgan, Avondale Drive and John Brooks, Mitchelstown. Next week’s jackpot is €6,000. See full details here  Next draw will be on next Wednesday with a jackpot of €6,000. For your chance to win €6,000 buy a ticket in a shop or pub around Bandon.

Match Reports

Bandon 15 – 12 Highfield Bandon completed a unique treble last Saturday in Wilton when they added the South Munster Cup to the Pan Munster and All Ireland trophies already captured this season.  It was always going to be a difficult task to get in the right frame of mind, having won an All Ireland final the previous week and so it proved as Bandon were second best in terms of possession and territory for the vast majority of the first half.  The game was played on an excellent surface with a strong breeze blowing across the pitch.  Bandon started this game without regular out half Jack Murphy and were to lose scrum half Richard Walsh to injury after twenty seven minutes.  Walsh played a good portion of that time out of position on the wing in the hope that his injury would clear up but eventually had to go off.  He had given his side a three point lead with a well struck penalty in the opening minutes which was to prove the only score of the half.  Highfield dominated the opening thirty five minutes but the Bandon rearguard held out, owing to a combination of organised defence and at times, just sheer willingness to scramble across and make tackles.  Highfield had one shot at goal after twenty minutes but it was poorly struck and went wide.   Bandon came more into the game after half time and went nine points clear with two penalties in the opening ten minutes by stand in out half Rob O’Sullivan, who had a fine match.  At this point, despite soaking up more pressure, Bandon were looking reasonably comfortable and Christian Mulcahy, deputising for Walsh at scrum half put in a number of excellent relieving clearance kicks.  After sixteen minutes the lead was extended to twelve when Bandon were awarded a penalty for a ruck offence after Kerry Desmond had intercepted.  Desmond took over the long range kicking duties and struck the ball over smoothly from 38 metres.   Bandon were guilty of trying to force the game on a number of occasions and were not playing with their usual patience.  Indeed one penalty that should have been kicked to touch was taken quickly and from the resulting turnover Highfied worked the ball upfield and were to eventually score an unconverted try to reduce the gap to seven.  Four minutes later they levelled with a try in the right hand corner that was superbly converted.  The rules of this competition stipulated that Highfield would collect the trophy if the scores remained the same owing the ‘tries scored’ rule which at that stage saw them ahead by two to nothing.  As a last throw of the dice, Jack Murphy was sprung from the bench.  The out half had an attempted drop goal blocked down and time was running out.  Highfield had a couple of chances to kill the game off but again the Bandon defence kept them at bay.  Bandon were now running the ball from deep inside their own territory and in the last minute, outside centre Kerrry Desmond made another scintillating break that brought play into the Highfield half.  From the ensuing ruck the referee awarded Bandon a penalty and from roughly the same spot where he had struck his previous effort, Desmond once again put the ball straight between the posts.  The final whistle went and Bandon capped off what was a remarkable season with a third trophy.  Despite not playing anywhere near their best, this Bandon side hung in there and emerged victorious in a game that in truth they had no real right to win.  A lot of players were clearly carrying injuries owing to the amount of rugby they have played in the last two months.  So while this game never scaled the heights of the recent Munster and All Ireland victories it certainly proved a test of resolve and character and once again this remarkable group of players delivered. Scorers for Bandon: Richard Walsh (Pen): Rob O’Sullivan (2 Pens) Kerry Desmond (2 Pens)
Bandon: David Healy; Christian Mulcahy; Kerry Desmond; Gearoid O’Leary; Mighty Bandon All Ireland Champions Bandon 15 – 03 Navan Bandon were crowned All Ireland champions in Naas on Saturday after defeating Leinster’s top side Navan.  The Munster title holders played with their customary patience from the off, holding onto the ball and waiting for gaps to appear.  Loosehead prop Ieuen Walters spotted one such gap from inside his own half.  When he was brought down some twenty metres upfield the ball was once again retained for several phases before being quickly fed out to left winger Mighty Okafor who showed a great combination of power and pace to go over in the corner.  Richard Walsh was marginally wide with the difficult conversion into the strong wind that Bandon faced in the first half.  Okafor proved there is more to his game than just finishing when one excellent tackle where he held the Navan player up resulted in a scrum to Bandon.  A subsequent free kick was tapped quickly by Walsh who fed Okafor again.  .  When the giant winger was brought to ground, several phases once again followed that brought play to the opposite side of the field before right winger Christian Mulcahy picked and went off the side of a ruck to score.  Walsh’s conversion made it 12-00.  Navan had only one real scoring chance in the first half but out half Colm O’Reilly made a poor effort from a forty five metre penalty.  Either side of this attempt there two huge tackles from Gearoid O’Leary and Conor Barry respectively, both of which saw Navan players unceremoniously bundled into touch.  On one of the few occasions that Navan had any territory Gerry Robinson  stole one great lineout ball and the danger was cleared.  One of the highlights of the first half was a break and one handed offload by Walters to Okafor.  The play came to nothing but emphasised that Bandon had threats all over the field  and could strike from anywhere.   With the strong wind at their backs and a twelve point lead it was difficult to see Bandon slipping up.  However they had to endure most of the pressure in the early stages of the second half and Navan opened their account in the 11th minute with a Colm O’Reilly penalty.  The Leinster champions were not going to simply roll over and it took an excellent Jack Murphy cover tackle to halt one particularly dangerous backline move.  Bandon were struggling to gain any real territory despite the wind advantage but the awarding of a penalty followed by another ten metres for backchat to the referee saw them into the Navan half.  A Walsh cross kick that just dropped just short of the touchline was picked up  by the Navan winger who was hounded into touch  by the Bandon players following up.  From the ensuing lineout there was an off the ball incident where Bandon  were initially penalised but the referee reversed his decision owing to a retaliation.  Walsh was agonisingly close with a well struck attempt.  Another penalty awarded to Bandon  two minutes later, for which a Navan player was yellow carded,   saw Walsh make amends with a wonderfully faded kick from the right hand side to make it 15-03.  .  The hunger in this side was further emphasised a couple of minutes later when a missed penalty kick to touch, that was batted  infield by Navan, was latched onto by Kerry Desmond  who offloaded to the ubiquitous Walters to set up another attack.  Desmond was proving a thorn in the Navan side and one break, hand off and chip and chase should have seen Bando n awarded a penalty when he was clearly obstructed in going for the line.  With time running out Navan were running the ball at every opportunity and on the one occasion they breached the Bandon rearguard Jack Murphy pulled off another superb cover tackle which was to prove their last real attack of note.  Minutes later the final whistle went and there were great celebrations as captain Jack Murphy was presented with the All Ireland trophy.  This was an unbelievable achievement for this squad who have been together for a number of seasons and have experienced many highs and lows in that period.  Having won the Munster and All Ireland titles, Bandon  will now hope to add a third trophy to their ever expanding list of honours next week when they take on old rivals Highfield in the South Munster Cup Final.  While there were some outstanding individual performances from this Bandon team, the overriding feature of this performance was the desire of the players to make tackles, get their hands on the ball and play without fear.  Great credit goes to the management team of Dan Murphy, Keith Fuller, Conor Slattery, Barry McLaughlin and Neil Canniffe,who have instilled such confidence in this group and under whose guidance they have achieved so much.  Hopefully for all the players involved this is only the beginning of what will be long and successful careers with Bandon RFC.
Scorers Bandon: Mighty Okafor (try), Christian Mulcahy (try), Richard Walsh (1 con, 1 pen).
Bandon: David Healy; Christian Mulcahy; Kerry Desmond; Gearoid O’Leary; Mighty Okafor; Jack Murphy (c); Richard Walsh; Ieuen Walters; Kevin Hurley; Colin Jackson; Enda Phelan; Gerry Robinsion; Conor Barry; Darragh Coffey; Michael Beechor. Replacements for Bandon: Oisin Healy for Christian Mulcahy (38), Robert O’Sullivan for Jack Murphy (66); Kieran O’Driscoll; Luke Holland; Lorcan O’Donnell; Ben Hunter; Brian Crowley; Sam O’Dwyer.   Scorers for Navan: Colm O’Reilly (1 pen) Navan: T Pretorius; M Connolly, H Hester, G McGrane, A Beggy; C O’Reilly, J Condie; B McGovern, S Healy, C Stafford; E Noonan, O Molloy; A Keating, M Clarke, J Wall.                                                                                                   Replacements for Navan: U McAdam for Keating 6, C Farrell for M Clarke 22, O McGrane for S Healy 22-27, D Fox for O Molloy 32.
Referee: S Douglas (IRFU).

Bandon Reach All Ireland Final Bandon 17 – 03 Buccaneers Munster U19 champions Bandon travelled to the Sportsgrounds in Galway to take on Connacht title holders Buccaneers in the All Ireland semi final and emerged victorious after an extremely hard fought encounter.  The pitch was in excellent condition and while the rain held off for the entire match there was a very strong wind which Bandon played into in the first half.  Bandon were defending for most of the opening quarter and found themselves 3-0 after conceding a penalty.  Slowly but surely they worked their way into the game and a break by Ieuen Walters brought them into their opposition half.  After a series of rucks the ball was fed back to Jack Murphy at out half who slotted a drop kick from close range to level the score.  Bandon were starting to display excellent ball retention into the wind. However they got a stark reminder that any wayward kicking would be heavily punished when the dangerous Buccaneers full back picked up a loose ball and proceeded to run the ball back a full fifty metres before finally being hauled down.  Buccaneers had the opportunity to once again take the lead but a relatively straightforward penalty opportunity was missed.  For the rest of the half Bandon, as they have been throughout this campaign, were extremely patient in possession.  The lineout was solid with Conor Barry gathering most of the possession from Kevin Hurley’s throws, as was the scrum which gave No. 8 Michael Beechor the platform to launch several Bandon attacks.  If there was one crucial difference between the sides it was that Bandon were emerging from the opposition ’22 with scores on the board.  From a ruck under the posts the referee had his hand out for a penalty advantage and Murphy cleverly decided to take the drop kick for a three point lead.  With the aid of the wind to come in the second half this would have been an excellent position to be in but on the stroke of half time Jack Murphy followed up his own kick to force a double block down on the Buccanneers full back and when the ball spilled into the in goal area, inside centre Gearoid O’Leary was there to pounce for a try in the corer to leave it 11-03 at the break.   Despite having the strong wind in their favour, a lot of the second half was played around the middle of the field.  The positioning of the Buccaneers back three was solid and they covered the space well which restricted Bandon’s kicking options.  The Buccaneers backline in general showed some quite slick handling at times and breached the Bandon line on more than one occasion but the Bandon scramble defence was functioning well and Buccaneers were not working as hard in attack as Bandon were in defence which led to a number of vital turnovers.  There were two crucial plays in particular when Buccaneers laid siege to the Bandon line and emerged with nothing.  The second of these, down in right hand corner ended up with a Richard Walsh box kick bouncing into touch some forty metres away and this was the moment where Buccaneers probably felt this was not going to be their day.  Ill discipline started to creep into their game and a penalty for back chat to the referee was slotted by Walsh to make it 14-03.  Bandon were also making a number of breaks in open play with Kerry Desmond and Ieuen Walters prominent in this regard.  At this stage it was hard to see Buccaneers scoring twice against this Bandon side but for good measure Murphy added a third drop kick, an astonishing achievement considering before this game he had never landed a single one, to put the game out of reach at 17-03.  Bandon played out game quite cleverly in the last few minutes, putting the ball in the touch when required and just playing out the clock.  The final whistle saw great scenes of joy amongst the Bandon supporters (who by far outnumbered the Buccaneers support) and players in what was another very proud day for all associated with the Club.   Bandon will be under no illusions about the task before them now as they travel to Naas this Saturday to take on Leinster side Navan who defeated Larne (Ulster) 27-00 in the other semi final.  Navan incidentally will also be contesting the U17 final on the same day.  The Bandon v Navan game will be kicking off at 3pm.  Check out www.facebook.com/bandon.rfc for details regarding travel for supporters.   Bandon: David Healy; Christian Mulcahy; Kerry Desmond; Gearoid O’Leary; Mighty Okafor; Jack Murphy (c); Richard Walsh; Ieuen Walters; Kevin Hurley; Colin Jackson; Enda Phelan; Gerry Robinsion; Conor Barry; Darragh Coffey; Michael Beechor. Subs: Kieran O’Driscoll; Luke Holland; Lorcan O’Donnell; Ben Hunter; Robert O’Sullivan; Oisin Healy; Brian Crowley; Sam O’Dwyer.


Match Tickets
One of the many benefits of becoming or retaining membership of your local club. We have tickets available to members for all matches (Munster & Irish Matches) All members are asked to fill out applications for their ticket requirements.
To become a member and for all for all membership applications click here.
For members tickets for any Heineken Cup or International Matches contact Ger O Flynn on 086 2338431 or full members click here

Facilities
Our All-Weather pitch is now available for hire Contact Tom Davis on 086 1250989. The Bar and Hall are also available to rent for details contact the social officer Damien Healy on 086-8383527.