Not surprisingly, given last year’s campaign, all eyes were drawn to this year’s first meeting with Energia AIL Champions, Terenure.
Getting them to Castle Avenue as the second AIL fixture raised the levels of anticipation, given that the two squads have made some adjustments and Terenure had also enjoyed a pre-season tour to Argentina.
Clontarf’s strategy is to ease into the AIL, so there can be a worry that we could be slightly undercooked.
On Saturday, many fears were cooled. Supporters will notice that our tactic against the champions saw the variation of putting the ball downfield when required and defending at the half-way or ten-yard line, rather than always building attack from our 22. This requires confidence in an organised defensive line which needs to both, meet the charge, and be accurate enough to force turnovers.
Both Josh Murphy and Hugh Cooney took to the task with relish and played a prominent role in shutting down the big Terenure runners. The opening score, surprise, surprise, came from a maul and was grounded by captain Dylan Donnellan, who is clearly not going to allow the burden of captaincy keep him off the scoreboard.
Con Kelly added two penalties for a solid 16 point lead, which was pegged back somewhat by a penalty landed by Terenure fullback ,Aron Egan.
Just before half-time a Tarf move broke down and the ball broke backwards. Back rower Ru Byron was first to react and took advantage of the broken play by storming through the visitor’s defence to put scrum half Ben Murphy in, beside the posts. Half time was 20 6.
The second half was quieter. Nure forced a penalty try when the Clontarf scrum went through a mushy period. Con Kelly added a couple of penalties to ease the nerves and the game ended 26 16 to Tarf, with plenty to work on, going forward for both sides.