AIL Match Report Clontarf V Dolphin
Author: NULL
2003-11-10
AIB AIL Division 1 8/11/03

Clontarf 30 Dolphin 19


Clontarf hosted newly promoted Dolphin at a windy Castle Ave on Saturday. Playing into a strong breeze blowing ,unusually from the Castle Ave end, it took the home side little time to get settled but needed the spur of a Dolphin penalty to get them going. David McAllister playing in his third AIL game with ‘Tarf outlined the depth of his talent with a searing break and timely offload to Mahony who fed Higgins who, in turn passed to Rossi for the winger to power over the line for the score. Dolphin responded with a snappy blind side break which caught the ‘Tarf backrow and their fullback scored in the corner.
Ben Wakely, having barely recovered from an overnight illness, scored his first try for his new club with a close in dart from a scrum. McAllister converted both tries and kicked two penalties to leave it 20 to 8 in favour of the home side with the wind to come in the second half.

Dolphin refused to go away however and despite a Darragh O’Shea try after tremendous pressure on the Dolphin line which brought the score to 27 - 8 continued to plug away.

It always seems strange to me but so many teams seem to cope better playing into a strong wind rather than with it. After Tarf scored their third try with the elements they seemed to lose control of the game. Any betting man in the ground would have guaranteed a fourth try for the home side but it did not materialize due to Dolphins refusal to roll over and ‘Tarfs inability to stay with their structure, use the wind and strangle the life out of the opposition in their 22.

OK that’s enough whinging……. The fact is this was a welcome home victory. Two from three is a great start with a practically new team. The new arrivals have bedded in well and we are relatively injury free, apart from Donovans nose!!

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