Lansdowne U20s suffered their first defeat of the season to UCD in an entertaining top of the table clash in Ballycorus.

After a great comeback, Lansdowne came up short, but managed 2 bonus points as a consolation.

UCD opened the scoring when they converted the first of many penalties incurred by Lansdowne during the first half.

But our U20s responded well, when, after a series of attacks, Peter Hastie broke clean through for an unconverted try. Lansdowne were being heavily penalised at the breakdown and UCD utilised this to pin Lansdowne in their 22.

UCD’s powerful scrum forced Lansdowne into conceding a penalty try. Shortly afterwards, after another penalty,  the UCD pack mauled over for another try. Hastie converted a penalty to leave the scores 17-8 at half time.

UCD continiued to dominate after the restart, and again their scrum was proving to be the problem, From two  5M scrums thier scrum half darted over for two further converted tries. With the score at 31-8 it was not looking good for Lansdowne. But to their credit, the U20s went all out attack and were rewarded when Hastie

again broke to score and convert.Lansdowne were then awarded a penalty try as UCD infringed a Lansdowne maul.

UCD responded and from a disputed cross-kick they scored and converted to make the score 38-24. But Lansdowne  were not finished yet, and Daragh Murphy broke straight through a ruck to score making it 38-29. Lansdowne attacked again and deep into injury time Hastie was impeded as he chased his grubber kick a Lansdowne kicked the penalty to make it 38-32 and gain  the losing bonus point with the last kick of the match.

So the Lansdowne U20s remain at the top of Premier 1 division going into the Christmas break with an impressive 32 points out of a possible 35.