When I was younger I had this fantasy that when I was older and flush with time and money that I would build a kit car. Huge wheels, sexy paint job , major rumble from the vastly overpowered engine etc etc . There were always a few niggling doubts though; the main one being that I have about as much technical engineering ability as a dog, and the other doubt was the classic DIY handyman’s dilemma.
What do you do when after finishing the job, after completing the herculean task , against the odds , and you are standing in front of your beauty , your fantasy , gleaming, rumbling and ready for the road and looking down you notice, lying at your feet, taunting you , are two large shiny , important looking , bolts. Bolts that should have been part of the structure but somehow have missed their calling and are here at your feet.
How do you drive your fantasy with that little niggle in the back of your mind that those bloody bolts are, somehow crucial; that you will be taking a corner looking magnificent, sexy even, and suddenly, for want of those two little shiny bastard bolts the car will take the bend and you, sitting smugly in your unbolted seat, will carry on straight through someone’s garden wall and on to their patio in a pile of mush.
Clontarf are a better team than last weekends result but they are playing in a state of tension that happens to teams in a relegation battle. For large parts of Saturdays game Clontarf had Cork Con by the throat but did not have the composure to put them away.
Invariably, if you play like a team expecting something bad to happen, it will. For the home side , a crucial error in the second half gave Con a scrum on the Clontarf line. Clontarf competed well but were unable to deal with the ball squirting out of the side of the scrum and the Con scrum half got the touchdown. That try plus the conversion put Con 20 8 ahead with 20 minutes to go. The home side finished with a sterling effort from substitute Martin Dufficy who landed a penalty and converted his own try to drag home side to a two point deficit but unfortunately Clontarf ran out of time.