The Front Row Union Sport - WAIL: Cooke 34 Highfield 5

WAIL: Cooke 34 Highfield 5

Jan 29, 2018

—

We are currently carrying out a necessary behind-the-scenes upgrade to how images are stored and delivered on The Front Row Union Sports. With over 770,000 images on the site, we are moving our entire image library to a dedicated cloud storage service. This means images will load faster for you, regardless of where you are in the world, and the site will be more reliable overall.

As we are working on three separate versions of images during the offload process, the site cache sometimes struggles to keep up with which version to display and occasionally post grid images or complete galleries may fail to appear. This is a temporary side effect of the migration process — the image exists and is safe, it is simply in the process of being moved to its new home and identified as being there. A refresh of the page will usually bring them back, however, if it does not please contact john@thefrontrowunion.com stating clearly the post address and we will restore it as soon as possible. We apologise for any inconvenience this causes and appreciate your patience.

We expect the bulk of the image migration to be completed by the end of June 2026, with a fully upgraded version of the site ready to launch in August 2026. Once that work is done, the site will be noticeably faster, images will load more reliably, and you will not see any further disruption of this kind. Thank you for your continued support of The Front Row Union Sports.

Cooke Women consolidated their top four placing in the Women’s All Ireland League with a convincing 34 – 5 win against Highfield Women at Shaws Bridge on Sunday afternoon.

The home side’s tries came from Ilse van Staden (2), Emma Jordan, Vicky Irwin and Dolores Hughes with Jemma Jackson adding three first half penalties. Highfield replied through Ciara O’Dwyer who crossed for the Cork side late in the second half.

The first half was a frustrating affair. Cooke had a strong wind behind them and they kept their opponents pinned in their own territory for most of the half. The Belfast players created plenty of chances but their tendency to snatch the final pass, coupled with a resolute Highfield defence, limited Cooke to two penalties from Jackson in the first half hour.

At this stage, despite losing the influential Heather O’Brien, Highfield would have been reasonably happy with their efforts but they eventually succumbed to the pressure with the impressive van Staden barging over out wide for Cooke’s first try. Jackson missed the difficult conversion leaving the score at 11 – 0 in Cooke’s favour.

Jackson added a penalty minutes later to take the score to 14 – 0 but with Cooke turning round to face the strong wind in the second half they were in danger of regretting their proflacy with the ball in hand.

Van Staden settled the home sides nerves with a well taken try, after a break by Helen McGhee, and with Cooke now leading 19 – 0 they seemed to relax.

The underrated Jordan was next to cross, out on the left, after another barging run from McGhee and Irwin went over in the same corner, after a break by Frida Nilsson, for the bonus point try.

The hard working, and closely marked, Brittany Hogan finally found some space, late in the half, to break through the defence and send replacement Hughes over for Cooke’s fifth to rattle the score along to 34 – 0.

To their credit, Highfield refused to lie down and they worked a deserved try for O’Dwyer late in the game to take the final score to Cooke 34 Highfield 5.

Gallery below.