LAST WEEK all pretenders to Shannon's throne were alerted by Blackrock's demolition mission at Dooradoyle. On Saturday, a patchy performance on home turf suggested this may have been a false alarm.

However part of any championship winning side's season contains sub-standard displays such as this and Blackrock did churn out the all-important victory.

Blackrock Coach Mike Brewer was not unhappy. "This really brought us back down to earth with a bump. Perhaps we had a false sense of security after last week. Their midfield defence was good. We didn't dominate them up front and they slowed down our ruck ball."

Old Wesley's ability to prevent Rock from laying back quick, clean ruck ball stifled the home side's running game. When possession was forthcoming, centres Rob McNaughton and Colin Younger (who retired with a broken nose at half time) knocked down the Blackrock backs like bowling pins.

And when John Quirke and Younger looked set to score, it was Hubie Kos and Paul O'Brien who made the big tackles and showed Rock's defensive intentions.

The stocky Blackrock full back Emmel Farrell has a knack of doing the right things at the right time. Allied to this is a perception for timing a pass that can take opposing players out of the game. He was impressive. Al centre Brian Carey was well marshalled but on occasion threatened Wesley.

Into the wind, Old Wesley kept the ball in hand and enjoyed territorial advantage. Indeed, Blackrock played the same game and Alan McGowan refused to kick long for position. Wesley repeated this mistake in the second half as the roles were reversed. While it was all done in the name of continuity and developing a pattern, it would have been far more sensible to adopt this strategy in the opposition's half. That is why each side look its turn to dominate into the elements.

While both McGowan and Adrian Hawe were wasteful from their penalty ratios - McGowan converted four from eight; Hawe two from six - McGowan shot Blackrock to a 6-3 lead at the break. Into the second period, Mick O'Neill began to take over out of touch. This, along with the prominent driving of Rory Rogers, generated momentum into the Wesley half.

This lured the Wesley forwards into infringing at ruck or stepping offside. Two further McGowan penalties after 51 minutes and 67 minutes had Rock 12-6 in front. Hawe's second success came at the beginning of the half. Just when Rock must have felt safe, Wesley ripped through their three-quarters for Oxford blue Ronan Browne to dive over in the left corner. From the touchline, Hawe saw his chance of an unlikely turnabout in injury time fall short of the Blackrock posts.

"When you are only six points down, something can always happen. Our tackling was superb but we didn't take enough ball in the second half to get the chances," said Old Wesley coach Mark Duffy.