The Leinster League moves into round three this weekend for local men’s sides as Kilkenny look to continue their unbeaten start to the season.
Having rejoined Division 1B this year following a few seasons in the top tier of junior rugby, the Foulkstown club have had a bright start to proceedings in seeing off Cill Dara on the opening day of the season before disposing of De La Salle Palmerston in Dublin a fortnight ago. They’ll make the trip to Athy this Sunday afternoon in the hope of making it three wins on the bounce.
For Carlow, their opening day defeat to Athy at the Showgrounds was amended with a 15-8 victory over Boyne at Oak Park at the turn of the month. Now, fresh from their 150-year celebrations this past weekend, Carlow make the long drive to CPL Park to take on Longford. Both of those games get underway on Sunday afternoon at 3pm.
Tullow still have a weekend off having played three games already, picking up two wins along the way including an opening-round victory away to Suttonians in Division 1A, followed by a narrow 21-20 defeat of Bective for their first home game of the season. They’ll face Ashbourne on Saturday week (21 October) looking to make up for a 12-6 defeat at the hands of Wicklow.
Womens Rugby
In the Womens Division 4, Kilkenny have had a good start to proceedings this season with two wins from their opening three games, making up for an opening round defeat to Edenderry with a 59 point shutout of Wanderers for their first home game of the season, matched by a convincing 31-10 away with to Gorey in Clonattin at the start of October. Now, after a two-week break, they’re home again and welcome Tullamore J1 to Foulkstown for a 1pm kick-off on Sunday.
Free-scoring Tullow have also started the 2023 league season well with two wins from three games, though they lead the points-scoring table with 111 on the board so far, Tullamore almost 40 points behind. It did help that they beat Dublin University 65-0 last weekend, running over 11 tries in the process to sit second in the league table. This weekend they’re on home soil as they welcome Tullamore to Black Gates, again kicking off at 1pm on Sunday afternoon.
Get more updates and insights from all three local clubs on The Knock On Rugby Podcast, available via Spotify, Apple Podcasts and here on Scoreline.ie.
