Buccaneers ... 8 Lansdowne ...  3: Buccaneers made heavy work of overcoming Lansdowne in this Division One game at Moher Road, Ballinasloe yesterday.

The home side did most of the pressing in the opening half and were unlucky in the third minute when they were stopped short. A penalty attempt by outhalf Turner in the seventh minute was wide and Niall Smullen was judged to have stepped into touch when he had the line at his mercy.

However, their try came in the 11th minute when winger Damian Hunt booted the ball ahead from the halfway line, collected it on the run and crossed at the corner flag.

Lansdowne saw their first penalty kicked wide by fullback O'Mahony in the 30th minute and their winger Karl Becker was bundled into touch yards from the Buccaneers line after he had blocked down Niall O'Hara's attempted clearance.

Inside a minute of the resumption Turner saw his penalty kick come off the crossbar and five minutes later the outhalf and his centre William Wallace were yellow-carded after they had bundled winger Becker into touch. The outhalf had just returned when he sent over a 35-yard penalty midway through the second half and his kicking throughout caused plenty of problems for the losers' defence. Ten minutes from time Lansdowne's outhalf Andy Tallon was wide with a 40-yard attempt and with the last kick of the game fullback O'Mahony got a penalty.

BUCCANEERS: N O'Hara; J Meagher, P O'Sullivan; W Wallace, D Hunt, L Turner, C O'Loughlin; A Nash, J McVeigh, F Boiroux, G Schoeman, N Smullen, G Kenny, E Brennan, A Hanley. Replacements: M Cahill for Boiroux; E O'Donoghue for Kenny.

LANSDOWNE: B O'Mahony; A O'Connell, J Smith; K Kennedy, K Becker, A Tallon, S Whelan; E Bohan, R Fallon, A McKeen, R Bolger, B Cusack, S Rooney, C Pratt, S O'Connor. Replacements: J Lyne for McKeen, J Donovan for O'Connor.

Referee: David Keane (Leinster)