READY, FIRE , AIM !
12/11/2007
Clontarf 22 Ballymena 23


Manchester City had a goalkeeper in the 70’s whose name was Joe Corrigan. Joe was a good goalkeeper but was prone to making a few costly clangers particularly in big games in front of full houses and the TV cameras.

There was a running joke among Man United supporters that after one of his classic clangers Joe decided to end it all. He left Maine Rd , walked out to the street and threw himself in front of a speeding taxi …… which went under him.

I still have a headache after Saturday. It isn’t an alcohol induced one either …although I had a good go at that also. It’s the kind of headache you get watching young guys learning by experience.

The simple reality on Saturday was that Ballymena played the referee better than we did. It was pretty obvious that the numpty with the new whistle was going to lean towards the team that was playing the simple, keep ball rugby, as opposed to the team who wanted to give him refereeing advice in most phases of the game. When under pressure most referees will revert to the simple option which, in rugby, is generally to ping the defending team. Lets face it …It’s the easy call.

What we did was engineer ourselves into a position where we were the defending team for most of the game. In the first half we scored three tries the first of which was a classic. Keatley went wide to Garvey who made great ground and found Keatley in support and he put Trenier in. Carson scored from a tight phase and Keane scored on the left after major confusion in the Ballymena defence. HT score was 15 10 to Tarf after Ballymena scored on the right after a sharp break in the centre added to their earlier penalty.
Clontarf turned with a strong wind and looked to be clear when they were awarded a dubious penalty try which was converted for 22 10. From that point on Ballymena realised that the tactics required to play into a strong wind were also going to pay dividends with the ref . For their part Clontarf played along by giving the ball to Ballymena at every opportunity. They accepted the possession gratefully and rumbled forward taking all the gifts as Clontarf frantically tried to work out what the ref would deem a legal defence. To add insult to injury the referee remembered he had yellow cards also, and Elvin was binned for having the temerity to defend his line and late on Garvey was binned for pulling down a maul and probably for being irritating as well. This last penalty was goaled for the final score of 22 23.

So a hard lesson learned.

Hopefully we will, take something from this as well as two bonus points. One thing is certain; the first half performance showed we have the firepower to trouble any team in the league. We just need to avoid shooting ourselves in the foot.

---