Clontarf - 21 Garyowen - 15:All-Ireland Legaue: Clontarf huffed and puffed, and got there in the end. And somehow you always sensed they would. There's an irresistible force about Clontarf nowadays, as evidenced by this ninth straight AIB League win, especially at their Castle Avenue fortress, where they've won five out of five.
With an eight-point buffer over their nearest challengers and just two points shy of the 43-point tally that earned them a breakthrough top-four appearance last season, Clontarf already have a foot in the semi-finals again.
But as they learned last season, home advantage is imperative once you get there, and despite a tricky run-in with trips to Carlow, Belfast Harlequins and Galwegians, and top four aspirants Buccaneers and St Mary's to visit Castle Avenue, they ought to press on for that target now - not to mention the increased revenue it would bring.
In truth, by their own improved standards, Saturday's performance wasn't a vintage one on a cloying surface in a fractious encounter.
In the first-half particularly, as their coach Phil Werahiko conceded, "we failed to build through the phases" and committed more turnovers in contact than they'd normally do in a month, though as he also pointed out, "much of that must go to Garryowen and the way they defended" - primarily against Clontarf's famed line-out maul.
By the end of the first half, when Clontarf trailed 15-3, they were a team in need of the interval, some redirection and some fresh impetus. Killian Keane had brought Dermot O'Sullivan into the line for the centre to put Kevin O'Riordan over in the corner - though the winger still had a couple of unconvincing tackles to beat - and Dave Hewitt had ill-advisedly invited Jeremy Staunton to counterattack off a 22-metre restart up the middle to Keane, the full-back chasing his own chip ahead for Dermot O'Sullivan to hack on and score.
It might have been a bigger hill to climb had Simon McDowell not interrupted Garryowen's early momentum with the first of many questionable calls for ruckers going to ground - even though everybody was still on their feet - and had Staunton not been just wide with a penalty from half-way.
In any event, Clontarf got their maul going and Walls played to his pack superbly.
"We need to hold on to the ball and play to our patterns," said Werahiko. "There's a lot of ability in the side, it's just a question of us disciplining ourselves to practise what we train. For us to win against all the Munster teams is a major achievement, and we're achieving milestones each week."
Clontarf are a real momentum team; indeed there's something Munsteresque in the way this highly organised and cohesive side can wear opponents down if they have to.
With Garryowen losing their defensive shape when defending mauls and McDowell playing advantage, Walls put the lurking Dave Moore over in the corner (converted miraculously by Conor Mahony) and even when reduced to 14 men they ran down the clock by keeping it up their jumpers and pumping the blind side for Walls himself to score in injury time.
Garryowen, having produced as good a 40 minutes as they've played all season in the first half, returned home lamenting some missed penalties to touch, Keane's missed three-pointer from 40 metres, the decisions to try and take on Clontarf with three attacking mauls (all of which were turned over) and a couple of reversed penalties that went against them at the behest of touch judge Norman Lynas, one of which saw Mahony put Clontarf in front for the first time.
But for all their sense of grievance over decisions that went against them, ultimately, Garryowen's discipline and basic errors let them down, as their Australian coach, John Warr, admitted afterwards.
"It's very disappointing. You can't just let a side like them get any momentum," he said. "Once we started missing touch and they started getting momentum they're very hard to stop. And I think to a certain extent in the second half we started to try and defend our lead. Credit to them, they don't turn it off, they just keep coming. I'm gutted for our lads because of the effort they put in."
Encouragingly, international David Wallace came though his first full 80 minutes of the season. He is, as Warr admitted, "still feeling his way" but he took on a good bit of ball, wasn't shirking the contact stuff and had a highish tackle count.
However, stuck in the bottom half of the table, and with four of their remaining opponents above them in the table, Garryowen have little or no room for manoeuvre now.
SCORING SEQUENCE:
3 mins: O'Riordan try 0-5; 34 mins: Mahony pen 3-5; 38 mins: D O'Sullivan try, Keane con 3-12; 40 mins: Keane pen 3-15 (half-time 3-15); 44 mins: Mahony pen 6-15; 58 mins: Moore try, Mahony 13-15; 64 mins: Mahony pen 16-15; 81 mins: Walls try 21-15.
CLONTARF: D O'Shea; N O'Brien, C Mahony, J Downey, O Winchester; D Hewitt, R O'Reilly; W O'Kelly, B Jackman, A Clarke, B Gissing, G Flynn, A Dignan, D Moore, S O'Donnell. Replacements: M Walls for O'Reilly, A Wood for Flynn (both half-time), D Quinn for O'Donnell (56 mins). Sinbinned - Wood (74-84 mins).
GARRYOWEN: J Staunton; D O'Riordan, D O'Sullivan, R Niland, K O'Riordan; K Keane, A O'Sullivan; R Callaghan, P Humphries, R Laffan, J O'Sullivan, D Sheehan, C Varley (capt), D Wallace, P Malone. Replacements: J Giltenane for Laffan (60 mins), C Hartigan for Malone (65 mins), B O'Brien for O'Sullivan (74 mins).
Referee: S McDowell (IRFU).
