Clontarf - 26 Galwegians - 22: Their fourth AIB All-Ireland League win in succession and Clontarf's mid-term report looks encouraging. Once again the ability to field a familiar bunch of players paid dividend for the Dublin side after yesterday's scrambled win over a depleted Galwegians. It may not have looked pretty but the Leinster Senior Cup champions have shown themselves to be nothing less than resilient in recent weeks.
St Mary's College, Ballymena, Carlow and UCD can testify to that and yesterday even though the visitors pushed the home side consistently in the second half in fading light, Galwegians came away with little more than a loser's bonus point.
The match, which lasted 51 minutes in the first half and 46 in the second, may well have broken some sort of longevity record but really Galwegians ended the game with the appearance of a side who were struggling for creativity in offence despite serious pressure in the fourth quarter. Clontarf by then had offered everything in attack, their dogged defence holding on for the winning points.
Just Pat Duignan and Junior Charlie took to the pitch for Galwegians following their romp with Connacht on Saturday. A few more bodies from the province and they could well have turned over their opponents. For many teams with contracted players this will surely be a season of "if only".
The home side will have sensed that they really only put in 60 minutes of good play, nearly all of it in the first half which they ended 17-6 ahead. By then they had done the necessary work and although Clontarf always led the scoring, Galwegians kept nibbling away at the margin, coming within a point just 14 minutes from the end.
At that stage the visitors were able to press forward, gaining a number of close-in lineouts but they just couldn't repeat the slick move that had allowed Mervyn Murphy crash through the Clontarf defence on the hour following a back-of-the-lineout ball taken by second-row John Casserly. That was Galwegians only touch down, all of their other points coming from the boot of their lively outhalf Bryan Shelbourne.
Clontarf full-back Dave O'Brien was involved in most home moves. With a final tally of six out of eight kicks, his afternoon's work was crucial. But it was the two first-half tries that gave Clontarf the match-winning edge.
On 23 minutes Mike Walls nicked the ball from the back of a drive in the right corner. Dummying a pass on the short side, a crack appeared and before Galwegians closed up Walls had wriggled over. Less than 10 minutes later prop Warren O'Kelly, again picking up from a driving maul after Donal Sheehan had gathered from the lineout, brought Clontarf to 17-3 after O'Brien's conversion.
At that point it looked as though a bonus point for four tries was a possibility after a series of missed kicks from Galwegians, in first-half injury time and at the beginning of the second period, left them trailing the Dublin side. Shelbourne pulled one back for 17-9 but in a fractured match, O'Brien extended it to 20-9 on 47 minutes.
Shelbourne had Galwegians to within a point at 23-22 after Clontarf were penalised in a close in scrum but O'Brien landed a decent pressure kick late in the match for the four-point margin.
Scrappy and at times facing self-inflicted pressure Clontarf nonetheless did what they are good at and toughed it out leaving Galwegians firmly placed at the lower end of the table and themselves breathing the fresher air in the top four.
Scoring sequence: 9 mins: D O'Brien pen 3-0; 23 mins: M Walls try, D O'Brien con 10-0; 28 mins: B Shelbourne pen 10-3; 32 mins: W O'Kelly try, O Brien con 17-3; 44 mins: B Shelbourne pen 17-6. Half-time. 45 mins: B Shelbourne pen 17-9; 47 mins: D O'Brien pen 20-9; 49 mins: B Shelbourne pen 20-12; 51 mins: D O'Brien pen 23-12; 60 mins: M Murphy try, Shelbourne con 23-19; 66 mins: B Shelbourne pen 23-22; 71 mins: D O'Brien pen 26-22
CLONTARF: D O'Brien; D Higgins, A Reddan, J Downey, O Winchester; M Woods, M Walls; W O'Kelly, T Foucher, A Clarke, D Sheehan, A Wood, D Moore, D Quinn, B Gissing. Replacements: P Lynn for Quinn 29 mins; M Kennedy for Foucher 60 mins.
GALWEGIANS: R Lee; F McLaughlin, P Duignan, M Murphy, N Carolan; B Shelbourne, J Heaslip; A Kershaw, G Flannery, F Farrell, J Casserly, G Heaslip, J Charlie, I Muldoon, B Gavin. Replacements: J Muldoon for I Muldoon 8 mins; R McCann for G Heaslip 63 mins; M Hough for F Farrell 78 mins.
Referee: S McDowell (Ulster).
