A depleted Cooke side went down heavily to Railway Union in their Energia AIL match at Shawsbridge on Saturday afternoon. 

The home side were largely competitive in the first half with Aishling O’Connell, Kelly McCormill and Katie Hetherington showing well alongside a few bursts from Ilse van Staden. 

However, Railway were able to take advantage of a few soft tackles from the Cooke defence with Ailsa Hughes, bursting through for the opening score before a long range effort from Aoife Doyle and a typical battling blast to the line from Lindsay Peat. 

Railway’s Larissa Muldoon converted two of the tries to give the visitors a 0 – 19 lead at the break. 

The visitors turned up the heat in the second half as Doyle completed her hat-trick to be closely followed by Ciara Cooney with a brace.

Emer O’Mahony also crossed to complete a second half haul of five tries, Muldoon converting four, to take the final score to Cooke 0 Railway Union 52.

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