Landsdowne - 20 Buccaneers - 0:Moments after the full-time whistle, Shane Horgan and Brian O'Brien chatted quietly and shared a joke or two in the passageway outside the dressing-rooms. After a recent spate of negative medical reports, the Irish manager will have had some good news to relate at the Irish base in the Glenview Hotel last night.
"After five weeks without a game it was nice to get back," said Horgan, who looks sure to reclaim the Irish number 14 jersey against Scotland when the team is announced tomorrow.
"It's great to be back playing for Lansdowne again as well, playing where I began my senior rugby. I wore protective padding (around his ribs), but it came through well. There were no ill effects whatsoever and hopefully I'll be available for next week."
Horgan admitted he needed the game. With Ireland-Scotland in mind, there was an argument perhaps for him playing on the right wing, but on a freezing, windswept day such as this, when cold hands made for a high rate of handling errors, that would have made him a virtual spectator along with the rest of those huddled around the Lansdowne Road back pitch. The nearer the action the better. Horgan looked rusty and will have benefited from the run-out.
Often used as a decoy, Horgan gradually came into the game more after the interval with one half-break and offload, and another clean break. But most importantly of all he took plenty of physical contact without any reaction to his wounded ribs.
Lansdowne coach Harry Williams admitted Horgan was effectively a guest player after just one session with his club team-mates on Thursday, but nevertheless the availability of Horgan, Gordon D'Arcy and Reggie Corrigan had been a big fillip for the entire first-team squad.
It seems preposterous that Lansdowne went into this match theoretically in relegation trouble and even still are looking over their shoulders rather than up the table. This is largely the result of three, last-minute defeats, easily the difference between play-off contenders and relegation fighters in one of the most competitive Division One seasons.
Buccaneers' last two outings highlights the unpredictability of this season's campaign: winners by 61-0 one week, losers by 20-0 the next. Go figure.
In truth this wasn't a real 20-0 game, and it might have turned out better had Buccaneers' traditional forward power been rewarded with an early try when Joe McVeigh lost control over the line and Lansdowne promptly came downfield to engineer a fine try for Brian Doherty.
The visitors had plenty of ball in the first period, and their close-in forward rumbles and mauls were tailormade for playing into a fierce, bitingly cold wind. Lansdowne often sought to run the ball in their half too, rather than taking to the skies, but only had an Alan McGowan penalty to give themselves something to defend moving into the last five minutes of the half.
Whereupon the Buccaneers pack twice sought to maul lineouts from inside their 22, twice they turned over the ball and twice their wingers were at fault in then conceding softish tries: the first when Michael Devine failed to gather Doherty's grubber kick and left wing Fiachra Baynes pounced, then when Ted Robinson came in off his wing as the livewire Shane Whelan put Robbie Dolan over on the blind side of a five-metre scrum.
Buccaneers had actually far more pressure with the wind and might have rattled Lansdowne's cage had Colm Rigney not been adjudged to have grounded the ball inches short, but as they threw the kitchen sink it became a source of pride to Lansdowne that the "nil" part stayed intact.
That it did reflects well on their collective morale. Mid-table anonymity should be within their compass.
SCORING SEQUENCE: 9 mins: Doherty try 5-0; 24: McGowan pen 8-0; 36: Baynes try 13-0; 40: Dolan try, McGowan con 20-0.
LANSDOWNE: B Doherty; R Dolan, G D'Arcy, S Horgan, F Baynes; A McGowan, S Whelan; R Corrigan, A Ronan, E Bohan, B Cusack, G Quinn, S Rooney (capt), A McCullen, L Toland. Sin-binned:Quinn (11-21 mins).
BUCCANEERS: W Munn; M Devine, D Yapp, T Allnutt, T Robinson; J Meagher, C Keane; McCormack, J McVeigh, M Cahill, R Frost, N Smullen, I Dillon, C Rigney, E Brennan (capt). Replacements: C O'Loughlin for Keane (63 mins), B Glynn for Meagher, P Flanagan for McVeigh (both 72 mins), G Kenny for Dillon (74 mins), A Nash for Cahil (75 mins). Sin-binned: Dillon (11-21 mins).
Referee: T Redmond (IRFU).
