Navan bid for another win

Navan make the trip to Tipperary next Saturday hoping to make it two from two in the AIL play-offs with Cashel laying in wait in what is a crunch tie for both teams. It is certain that Cashel had their spies in place at Dubarry Park, Athlone on Sunday and while they will closely analyse Navan"s display they must surely know that the Balreask Old side are capable of playing better than they did against Tullamore. The big question Navan supporters will be posing is whether Sunday"s display was a sign of a team who have simply played too much rugby in a short space of time or whether the display was a just a bad day at the office. Navan coach Brad Harris will be emphasising to the players on where they can improve. He will want them to remember Sunday"s match, learn from their mistakes and move up to another level. Because they will certainly need to do that if they are to have any chance of achieving a victory over a Cashel side who kick-started their play-off games with a resounding 28-9 win over Monivea. The bonus point they gained in that game has left them sitting at the top of the table with five points while Navan are a point behind following their last-gasp win over City of Derry. Navan are likely to travel to Tipperary with a near full hand to play from with Harris, Eoin King and Ronan Conaty all likely to be available for selection. They missed the game against Tullamore as did Mark Harrington who is carrying an injury and has to be considered a doubt for Saturday. Harrington has proved himself to be an effective line-breaker in recent outings and if available he will surely start. It wasn"t all gloom and doom for Navan at the Athlone venue as they did produce some good spells of play. There was Alan Hickey"s early try, a score that indicated that at least the player was re-discovering his old sparkle after a long, barren spell out with various injuries. Sylvanus Iro turned up as a centre and he got in his usual quota of hard, driving runs and made the hard yards. Despite feeding off some clean ball from the line-outs, Navan found it difficult to get their backline moving often enough to expose any gaps in Tullamore"s well-organised defensive line. One statistic from the game that will cause Navan some concern was the number of knock-ons they conceded. All too often, good attacking positions were surrendered by an unforced error. Navan were also caught out by well-executed cross-field passes from Tullamore out-half Gearoid O"Grady that twice led to tries. It is a tactic Navan will have to watch out for on Saturday. Having witnessed how well they worked on Sunday, Cashel may well try the same tactic to carve out chances. At various times against Tullamore last weekend, Navan attempted to inject some momentum into their game however, they found it difficult to do so as the fizz and energy evident on other days was conspicuous by its absence.