The Royal Irish will be in their fourth straight national HS final after the Indianapolis team defeated a hard-nosed West Shore United 30-12 Friday at the Rugby Athletic Center in Charlotte, NC.

The Pennsylvania club West Shore gave Royal Irish plenty to work through, and the Irish also had some injuries to deal with. The most concerning of those was a leg injury to flanker Noah Schrader on Thursday. Schrader missed Friday’s game and is still a doubt for Saturday.

The Royal Irish struggled put put away Phoenix Alpharetta in the quarterfinal on Thursday, and while part of that was to do with Phoenix playing very well, especially in the first half, Royal Irish Head Coach Scott Peterson said he also felt his team started slowly.

“We addressed the slow start, but we had a lot of work to do,” said Peterson. “We made some decisions we shouldn’t have made - passed up the decision to go for points, things like that. But we gutted it out - a lot of the players gutted it out.”

With HS All American flyhalf Brian Hannon working the offense and fullback Michael Fleck making some big plays and deft kicks to space, they made sure West Shore had to work for it.

The Royal Irish put the ball through the hands to wing Matt Bates for their first try. They then scored another try from defensive pressure. Scrumhalf Tyler Decker blocked a clearance kick from West Shore’s in-goal, and flanker Will Schroeder raced in to touch down.

“We saw Thursday that the try zones were kind of short,” said Peterson. “So that was something we thought we could do on a five-meter scrum.”

Interestingly, Royal Irish were also conscious of the charge-down risk when on defense, and preferred a quick kick with a determined chase when getting out of trouble - that proved to be the right move.

West Shore replied and it was 12-5 when Hannon capped off a nice back move by kinking around and through some defenders and then finding Drew Weimer. The flanker then barreled through several West Shore defenders to score under the posts.

“He’s like that,” said Peterson. “Really he just doesn’t care. He will just take tacklers on.”

Unfortunately for the Royal Irish, Weimer would later leave the game with an inure.

In the second half the Royal Irish just used their boot to pin West Shore back, and work the pressure from there. From an attacking scrum No. 8 Kevin O’Hara bulled over to make it 22-5. West Shore replied almost immediately to make it 22-12.

“There were a couple of times when they got within a couple of scores, and we had to keep the cushion,” said Peterson. And while the normally conservative Royal Irish coach might have cringed at the decision, Hannon opted for a drop goal on one sequence, and slotted it nicely to extend the lead to 25-12.

Late in the game, a long, winding run from Fleck set them up in the West Shore 22, and then lock Will Schroeder went over to finish the game off.

It was enough.

“We put in a bunch of younger players and they really came through for us,” said Peterson.

But at the same time, a battered Royal Irish will need everything to corral a good-looking Granite Bay team in the final.