And so the Bateman Cup brought Clontarf to Nenagh Ormond for the first time in history and true to the sporting ethos of Tipperary, the welcome was warm and generous off the pitch and hot and heavy on the pitch.
Nenagh are currently propping up Div 1A of the league and have yet to register a win. Their supporters were taking a philosophical view on this and were giving resigned indications that maybe the omens were not great for their season.
On Saturday, the home side brought big portions of war hammer to the visitors and knocked the Clontarf team out of its stride for a large portion of the game . We could be accused of being a little presumptuous with some of our play. If that was true, then we were disabused of that by some thunderous hits and full tempo ball-carrying that reminded the Tarf flyers that accuracy is important, if you are to avoid being monstered by the Nenagh tacklers. Suffice to say, there were a lot of sore bodies after the game.
Clontarf opened the scoring after 10 minutes with a solid maul into the home 22 which was released to Con Kelly, whose cross-kick was on the money and Peter Maher scored in the corner for 0 5.
10 minutes later a Tarf maul roared from the 10 metre line into the home 22, where the ball was promptly turned over. Nenagh made ground deep into Tarf territory where their captain, O’Flaherty, found a gap for the try and 7 5.
Con Kelly added a penalty for 7 8 and, as time ticked towards the break, Clontarf cut loose.
When a home penalty struck a post and was cleared to touch, Fionn Gilbert got a hand to the Nenagh throw, Dylan Donnellan carried hard up the middle, followed by another carry from Niall Smyth up the right. When the ball went right to left, Donnellan made a superb burst for the posts and found Tadgh Bird in support for a classic try. Con Kelly added the conversion for 7 – 15.
Nenagh kicked off on the full for a scrum back. Michael Moloney dabbed a kick into the home 22, which resulted in a lineout to Tarf and a maul. Two heavy carries and Con Kelly spotted an overload on the right and went in on the left for a real poachers score and 7 22 at HT.
At this point I have to give a shout-out to Peter Maher. There’s a character in the film Pulp Fiction called Winston Wolf. He’s what’s known as a cleaner – in that he’s the guy to call when a bad mess needs to be sorted. Peter Maher is our Winston Wolf because he spent most of the first half cleaning up messes in front of him. Bad pull backs, loose tap backs, dropped balls – Pete was there to whip them up and make ground like a retriever doing zoomies in the Park. He got a try as well …. And he got an narky whack off the ball from a home forward, which was so blatant, it was almost comical.
The second half was bound to be a bit loose and it was . Eight subs travelled and everyone got time. Even Gormo nearly came on ….. he couldn’t stub his fag out quick enough so the chance went.
The upshot was that Tarf got wobbly and inaccurate and Nenagh spotted the chance to do damage on the attacking side of the ball.
Nenagh opened the scoring in the second with a mauled try for 12 22.
Tarf promptly took play to the home 22 and after multiple errors managed to score after phases of pick and shunt for 12 27.
Nenagh kicked off, Con’s reliever was blocked to touch on the 22 for a Tarf throw. Nenagh won the ball back then passed it directly into touch on the right (are you getting a feel for this game now?). The game was called back for a Nenagh scrum which resulted in a free kick which they ran and promptly threw an interception to Michael Moloney. Both he and Alex O’Grady raced after the kick ahead. The home defender couldn’t bring it under control and, when it popped loose, Moloney flicked it up with the outside of his right boot, gathered and scored, cool as you like!
I mean, great craic and all that but WTF was that phase of play all about.
That brought the score to 12 34. And Tarf would not score again in the match.
Clontarf then invited the home side into their 22 with multiple errors and penalties just when some relief seemed clear.
The next 20 minutes were spent in the defending the right hand corner, as every attempt to punch out was thwarted by a silly error or a penalty to the home side.
It was bound to tell eventually so when a fumbled home lineout was regathered Nenagh had enough grunt to get it over the line for 19 34.
As we moved into the last 10 the keystone Cops theme established itself, so it was all going to be about composure. Nenagh continued to pour on the physicality and Clontarf continued to pour out errors. Nenagh got in on the right for 24 34. That was pretty much it. Nenagh got another at the finish but were always likely to run out of time, and thankfully they did!
Peter Walsh
Chronicler of scrums, storms, and all the beautiful chaos at Castle Avenue and beyond.
