Clontarf overcame a serious challenge from a muscular Con side on Saturday in Temple Hill and managed to hold the hosts try less for the full 80 while scoring two crackers of their own.
While two tries to nil tells part of the story it was the resilience in the scrum particularly in the last 10 minutes of the first half that was key to the victory. At one point it was almost certain that Con would score, or at least earn a penalty try, as the Tarf scrum struggled with the white power. Thankfully the gods of sport intervened and, with Sammy Cronin defending from all sides of the offside line the visitors held out and won a relieving scrum of their own. That allowed Tarf to go in at half time leading 13 3 after Joey Carbury landed two penalties and a conversion of man of the match Michael Browne’s score in the pavilion corner after 25 minutes.
The try itself was a classic of silky handling by Carbury and O’Shea after great lineout work from Ben Reilly, however, the conversion was out of a different book. Faced with a charging con attempt to block and a ball that slipped the tee in the run up, Joey Carbury slotted a converted drop goal from the side line that even had the home supporters gasping in admiration.
As the second half developed the power of the home scrum dissipated and when Browne, for about the fifth time, carried hard of the Tarf 22 into the gale, Carbury was on hand to support and stiff the defence with a beautiful pass that put the young winger in for his second touchdown . That took the score out to 18 6, Con added one more penalty but could not muster the energy to continue the assault.
Tarf held on for a deserved victory, and with 4 games to go to decide the final league placing and the all-important home semi-final spots, will face a resurgent Young Munster side in Castle Avenue next Saturday. Munsters are currently lying one spot behind Tarf in third place. They have strong ambitions for a home semi themselves. This game could be a classic and with family day in the club and the England v Ireland game on inside afterwards, sure, where else would you be going ?
London maybe ?