CLONTARF PIN UCD IN THE WET!
14/01/2008
UCD 8 Clontarf 14


If anyone was wondering why the Irish have an affinity for alcohol then the weather at the weekend would have explained a lot. When nature serves you a day of relentless, blowing, freezing rain then it is not hard to imagine our ancestors locking themselves into their mud hut, or whatever, with a roaring fire, a big hairy dog to cuddle up to, and a supply of booze to see them through for a few days.

The problem with days like this is that the best laid plans can go haywire depending on luck.
First part of the plan playing a College side in the rain is to deny them a start.

College kick off , Tarf knock on , College set a ruck and load the blindside; number 7 O’Brien runs a great angle and puts winger Artemiev in at the corner for 5 nil after 30 seconds.

I now know why I needed crowns on my teeth because I was grinding them so hard I nearly gave myself a migraine.

The rest of the half was a mixture of the sublime and the ridiculous. Tarf defended like dogs, battering the students all over the park and driving them onto the back foot where they were forced to concede the lineout. Tarf would then make a mickey of the lineout, return the possession to the students and off we’d go again.

Bloody keystone cops in the wet.

I’m all in favour of ambition, but taking the tone of the game from the home side was crazy. It also confuses the ref who, being human, is bound to make some errors if the game is being played at ninety.

So to get to half time at 8 0 to College was quite a result.

In the second half Clontarf started to get to grips with the home side who were ,by now , starting to show some wear and tear after their first half efforts. Also, while the Tarf lineout was struggling, the scrum was most certainly not and on 50 minutes a home put in on the UCD 22 was devastated by a Clontarf surge and O’Donohoe snapped the advantage and powered over under the posts. Keatley converted for 8 7 and UCD were visibly beginning to wilt. With 10 minutes to go Clontarf were camped in the UCD half and showing the kind of control of possession that they should have had from the start. After about 8 phases on the College 22 the ball came right to Keatley who decided to switch back left where the fatigued defence bought his show and go and he cantered under the posts untouched for 8 14 and the game. UCD had a final lash but knocked on at the line and Tarf finished the game in the home 22 after a superbly flighted relieving kick from Howard.

P.S. It was great to see Healy in the changing room after the match, fresh from Leinster’s victory over Toulouse in the RDS. He looked all shiny in his number 1’s, especially so after he got pulled into an impromptu water fight, which, by the way, also caused some collateral damage to some of the more senior members of the club. Our president, in particular, got slightly damp which came as quite a shock to his system given he has reached an age where washing is voluntary!

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