All-Ireland Cup final/Garryowen 20 Belfast Harlequins 7:As with the All-Ireland League, so it is with the AIB All-Ireland Cup; Garryowen emulating the inaugural winners, Cork Constitution, in the competition's second year to repeat the early history of the AIL. Invent a tournament and the first to sniff the silverware are invariably the Munster clubs.
Dubarry Park impressively laid on Saturday's double header, with two teams freed from the shackles of desperately pursuing the top four and avoiding relegation respectively and a world-class referee who awarded only seven penalties, which was also testament to the teams' attitudes.
Perhaps the two of them have also benefited from the weekly diet of competitive rugby their cup runs have brought. In any event, it was Garryowen's start that went a long way toward deflating the confidence a rejuvenated Harlequins have generated under Alan Solomons.
Taking Harlequins' kick-off, running hard and keeping the ball alive, an ultra-positive Garryowen had Harlequins reeling, the first try coming when Ciarán O'Boyle alertly picked off Johnny Lowe's attempted offload to fullback Mark Kettyle following Conan Doyle's chip.
The London Irish-bound Eoghan Hickey, who controlled proceedings well by mixing up his siege-gun kicking with good distribution, converted, as he did when Eugene McGovern, who had passed a last-minute fitness test, rounded off another bout of recycling with a good line to plunge under the posts before his back gave out. Ten minutes gone, 14-0 and game more or less up.
"We said it before, it's a cup final and whoever starts a cup final well invariably wins it," commented their delighted coach Paul Cunningham. "We just said let's come out at the start like a ton of bricks. Our fellas were up for this in a major way.
"Eoghan (Hickey) threw the ball well, the forwards really went into the right areas, putting pressure on people, and when we play like that there's not an awful lot more I can ask for.
"I'm delighted for the players. We last won the (All-Ireland) League in 1994. It's massive, because it's a national competition. It means a lot to everybody."
Admittedly the psychic energy might have flowed differently if Kettyle had exploited an excellent counterattack and Lowe's decoy run inside by locating the speedy Paul McKenzie on his outside in between that initial Garryowen double whammy.
Instead, Hickey tagged on two well-struck penalties either side of Harlequins losing outhalf Niall O'Connor with a bang on the shoulder - and so Garryowen turned around with a 20-0 lead.
Harlequins had had as much of the game, remarkably, but one double hit by Mark Melbourne and Paul Neville on Stuart Philpott epitomised their high, and highly effective, tackle count.
"It might have been different if we'd turned around 13-7, but we kept our heads up; we were the only team to score in the second half," commented Solomons.
"These kids have done incredibly well, playing under pressure week after week, but one shouldn't take anything from Garryowen; they were deserving winners."
A youthful Harlequins kept trying to play the positive rugby that has been their hallmark since Solomons's arrival revived a seemingly doomed relegation struggle with a run of four league wins out of five as well as Cup wins over Galwegians, Ballymena and Shannon.
Admittedly, they had to force things a bit here, and Garryowen's blanket defence - in which everyone in light blue, but most notably a hugely influential backrow, contributed - produced repeated turnovers.
Harlequins deservedly had some reward when Kettyle cut back on Keith Piper's inside pass, beat two tackles and put McKenzie over. And they might have sparked an interesting finale had Lowe been awarded the touchdown to his own chip ahead after the setpiece move of the match, when the talented and lively Paul Marshall looped around Rory Blake-Knox for Kettyle to hit the line at pace.
Harlequins are also in the Ulster Senior League and Cup finals, and next week's relegation shoot-out with UCD is the biggest of a long list of "cup finals". Garryowen entertain Galwegians hoping Dolphin deny Shannon the bonus-point win they need to take that fourth play-off spot.
SCORING SEQUENCE: 4 mins: O'Boyle try, Hickey con 7-0; 10: McGovern try, Hickey con 14-0; 23: Hickey pen 17-0; 39: Hickey pen 20-0; 69: McKenzie try, Pyper con 20-7.
GARRYOWEN: C Kilroy; A O'Loughlin, K Hartigan, C Doyle, C O'Boyle; E Hickey, G Hurley; R Brosnan, D Varley, E McGovern; M Melbourne, E Mackey; P Neville (capt), A Kavanagh, P Malone. Replacements: J Staunton for McGovern (20 mins), N Melbourne for Staunton (55-58 mins) and for Malone (70-73 mins), D Sheahan for Mackey, Cillian O'Boyle for O'Loughlin (both 62 mins), A Kingsley for Hickey, F Quaglia for Doyle (both 76 mins). Not used: P Humphreys.
BELFAST HARLEQUINS: M Kettyle; J Lowe, P McKenzie, K Pyper, G McLoughlin; N O'Connor, P Marshall; N Conlon, S Philpott, J Andress; G Rourke, L Stevenson; A Ward, C Atkinson, A Gillespie. Replacements: R Blake-Knox for O'Connor (21 mins), S Raye for McLoughlin, D Johnson for Gillespie (both 50 mins). Not used: A Sproule, B Hanvey, G Jewhurst, R Kirkwood.
Referee: A Rolland (IRFU).
