Hard to let the weekend pass without commenting on the Ryder Cup. Don’t you think Shane Lowry should work on his winning putt celebration? OK… so you sink the putt to secure the Ryder Cup and then shoot across the green like a man with a wasp in his jocks. Surely a few lessons from Robbie Keane are due here. A close second was Justin Thomas, who celebrated his win on the 18th like a man who’d lost control of his bionic leg.
Clontarf opened their 25/26 AIL campaign with a loss to a St Mary’s side who played like their lives depended on the result. Clontarf need to recognise that when you’re the champions, you have a target on your back. Every team will raise their game accordingly, and many will play under little or no pressure of expectation. If you don’t expect to win, you throw the kitchen sink at it — try everything, live on the edge, and see what happens.
As it turned out, Mary’s defended well — if a little over the edge — and took their scoring chances superbly when they came. The first try came from a training-ground move off a lineout featuring a skip pass and a flick to the blindside winger, who put the fullback in untouched. The second came from a lineout maul after a high-tackle penalty was put to the corner. The third was a beautiful chip over the defensive line, gathered at full pace for a try under the posts.
In between all this excitement, Clontarf were struggling to control the ball through the phases. The visitors just weren’t accurate enough to build the sustained pressure that saps energy and earns points. Inexplicably, Tarf seemed to lose control of the ball when scoring a try looked the simpler option.
Half-time came with the home side leading 22–7, and despite the margin there was a strong impression that if Tarf could turn early pressure into a score, we might be in for a big Ryder Cup finish. However, Mary’s maintained their intensity for the first ten minutes of the second half and were rewarded with a mauled try that put them out of sight. A three-pointer early in the fourth quarter made the task even harder.
Despite that, Tarf began to show signs of the old grunt, managing to add a mauled try and then a penalty try at the finish to bring some balance to the scoreboard — which stopped ticking at 32–21 to the home side.
Congratulations to Mary’s on a well-deserved win, built on superbly accurate attack in the first half. Clontarf will get better and a lot more streetwise as the season develops.