The Shannon coach must have run over a cat or driven under one very big ladder of late, judging by their bad luck at Stradbrook yesterday evening. To compound matters, scrumhalf Peter Stringer was stretchered off at a late stage to leave the Munster management with an overnight headache.
Desperately running turnover ball out of the 22, Stringer was tackled late after making a pass. The results of a scan will today determine if he sustained ligament damage to his right ankle, amid an additional fear of a slight fracture.
In the meantime, Shannon's top-four hopes hang by a thread after this setback. Blackrock are now within three points in sixth place - though on this evidence that is both misleading and flattering. Brian O'Driscoll was hardly used in his half-hour cameo.
Though Shannon scored three tries to two, the off-colour Andrew Thompson landed only two kicks from seven, whereas Alan McGowan kicked five out of six and landed a drop goal. Therein lay the crux of the tale.
Blackrock were flattered by their start, McHugh penalising Shannon for a crooked scrum feed at the first put-in, the impressive Ian McLaughlin rumbling through the middle and McGowan nonchalantly dummying inside Mossie Lawlor with the two-to-one overlap from the recycle before kicking a touchline conversion into the wind.
Shannon provided the greater width and potency. From sustained drives, John Lacey scored a brace of tries to take his tally to seven with well-timed and well-angled runs onto offloads from the young dynamos Lawlor and John Davis. But Thompson's waywardness and McGowan's accuracy contrived to leave them trailing 1613 at the break.
And so it continued, despite Mick Galwey aggressively winning ball on one touchline, and Lawlor dancing around Conor Kilroy and Nathan Turner to score. Blackrock played for field position with the wind, occasional sorties enough for McGowan to edge them back in front before, 10 minutes into injury time, Shannon spilled the ball inside halfway and James Ferris hacked on to outmuscle Thompson in winning the touchdown.
Even so, Dave McHugh gave a curious penalty try award, easing the conversion for McGowan which denied Shannon even a bonus point.
Scoring sequence: 2 mins: McGowan try, con, 7-0; 7 mins: Thompson pen, 7-3; 13 mins: Lacey try, 7-8; 15 mins: McGowan, 10-8; 26 mins: McGowan pen, 13-8; 30 mins: Lacey try, 13-13; 40 mins: McGowan pen, 16-13; 48 mins: Lawlor try, 16-18; 54 mins: McGowan drop goal, 19-18; 57 mins: Thompson pen, 19-21; 60 mins: McGowan pen, 22-21; 90 mins: penalty try, McGowan con, 29-21.
BLACKROCK COLLEGE: N Turner; C Kilroy, A O'Neill, D Quinlan, G Browne; A McGowan, D Popplewell; I McLaughlin, S Byrne, N Treston, R Casey, L Cullen (capt), D McGettigan, R Murphy, R Rogers. Replacements: B O'Driscoll for O'Neill (50 mins), J Ferris for Popplewell (72 mins), T O'Donoghue for McGettigan (77 mins).
SHANNON: J Lacey; Jason Hayes, A Thompson (capt), J Davis, M Lawlor; D Delaney, C O'Loughlin; M Horan, S McNamara, John Hayes, M Galwey, J Langford, R Collins, D Quinlan, C McMahon. Replacements: P Stringer for McNamara (half-time), J O'Neill for Jason Hayes (49 mins), P McMahon for McNamara (56 mins), D Costello for John Hayes (58 mins), T Hayes for Stringer (79 mins).
Referee: D McHugh (IRFU).
