CLONTARF MARCH TO SEMI FINALS OF AIB CUP!
04/02/2008
Clontarf 23 Garryowen 11


This is turning into quite a test series.

There is a strong possibility that these two sides could meet again in the penultimate stage of the AIB League so the game on Saturday had a little bit of extra heat in it. The fact that Clontarf turned over Garryowen in Limerick in the league would also have been on the visitors minds so it was not surprising that the light blues were fizzing from the start. Unfortunately for them Clontarf still had dark memories of two home defeats by Garryowen last year and were pretty bulled up themselves.
Garryowen made some headway early on and found space to attack the inside channel on a number of occasions which Clontarf did well to snuff out with some excellent scramble defence from their back three ably assisted by Paul O’Donohoe who put in some timely hits, and by Ian Keatley, who opened up a man of the match performance with some towering defensive kicks.
Once that inside breach was filled the game settled into a pattern and no 15 Kilroy opened the scoring with a penalty after 15 minutes when Garvey was pinged and yellow carded for coming in at the side. It was a tight decision and resulted in Garvey coming to sit beside me in the dugout where I was treated to his view of the affair delivered with the kind of verbal pyrotechnics that only he is capable of. I was the fourth official for the match. A role which, at the best of times, requires a small degree of concentration, organisation, and logical thought. Not the talents I generally bring to Clontarf home games; preferring instead to survive on visceral, blind ignorant roaring fuelled by bias worthy of the Nazi party in its heyday.

I thought I was bad but Garvey takes the biscuit!

5 minutes later Keatley levelled it after offside in front of the Garryowen posts and was on the mark again on 30 and 32 minutes as the Clontarf pack turned the screw. Just before half time the pack again made huge ground and were in for a certain score to the right of the posts when a Garryowen hand tried to kill it and the referee decided a penalty try was in order for a half time score of 16 6 to the home side.

Garryowen started the second half brightly, or did we start it dimly? , and after 15 minutes were pressurising the Clontarf line. After multiple phases they probed the blind side but were aligned too flat and threw a suicide pass which had interception written all over it. It’s bad enough throwing one but when you also manage to give it to the fastest thing on two legs within a five mile radius you know it’s not going to be your day. Phil Howard was still accelerating and trailing vapour as he went past the Garryowen bench heading for the posts and a certain 7 pointer for 23 6.
That took the steam out of the visitors and Gerry Hurley’s little snipe around a ruck on 65 minutes was scant consolation. So a final score of 23 11 to Clontarf and we move on to the semi finals of the Cup which the furthest we have progressed in this competition to date.
Congratulations to all for the most complete performance yet this year. At 10 Ian Keatley added some pinpoint kicking to go with his peerless distribution for a first class out half performance. Niall O’Brien took his starting opportunity to test out his recently repaired shoulder with some massive wallops and came away smiling. The pack were, as usual , massive, with Treston in particular grinding the opposition around the fringes in defence and pounding up the middle of rucks in attack. We now have a welcome two week break and will face Cork Con in Castle Ave on the 16th Feb. 
The way things are developing it will be a cracker.

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