Clontarf’s attacking firepower misfired in the wet at Old Belvedere on Saturday, as the hosts ground out an 11–7 victory — their first AIL win over ‘Tarf in a generation. Despite dominating the set piece and piling on the pressure late, the visitors found the try line stubbornly out of reach.
The weekend before last, Clontarf took an enamel bucket full of tries and conversions and sloshed them liberally all over the Castle Avenue pitch. On Saturday in Old Belvedere, they went to the bucket and discovered it full of wind and water with little in the shape of scores.
In WW2 the German Army designed one of the most compelling weapons of the War. Officially called the Panzerkampfwagen VI Aus E, the “ Tiger” was a monstrous 54 ton tank with 100 mm of frontal steel armour, two machine guns, a fixed mortar and a huge 88 mm gun, capable of destroying an enemy tank at nearly 3,000 metres. It was by far the most powerful tank in the western theatre and struck terror into the allied armour everywhere it appeared on the battlefield. For comparison, the Allies US manufactured Sherman 75mm gun could not penetrate the frontal armour on a Tiger from any distance.
It had a problem though ……. The bloody thing kept breaking down ! … It was so over engineered that, if anything broke, it took so long to fix it, that the battle was finished. The majority of Tigers destroyed in the war were actually blown up by their own crews to stop them falling into enemy hands.
In good working condition however, and in the right hands, it caused chaos. Google Michael Wittman, Battle of Villars-Bocage for an idea of what this baby could do!
Congratulations to Old Belvedere on their first victory over Clontarf in the AIL since the dark ages. It wasn’t pretty, required more than a share of lucky breaks, but it was deserved for a back to the wall defensive effort for long parts of the game and particularly for the last 15, when it looked odds-on that the visitors would fashion the breakthrough that their set piece dominance deserved. Clontarf, like the Tiger tank, kept breaking down at key moments and a return of one try from umpteen entries into the home 22 will make for interesting discussion at the match review. To be fair, the weather was non-conducive to any accuracy, especially at the lineout and the wet ball made handling at the ruck a complete lottery. Losing two key backs early, didn’t help either and we will be hoping that Peter Maher and Matty Brennan get well soon.
In the end Old B’s two early penalties were key as the weather became the dominant player on the day. Both teams exchanged close-in scores after scrambled lineouts and the score of 11-7 held for most of a fractious, error strewn, soaked, miserable second half to the final whistle.
Peter Walsh
