Stillorgan 27-12 Clontarf
J3 League - Mar 3, 2008
The J3 team took on Clontarf yesterday with a bit of tension off the pitch leading to a much improved Clontarf team turning up at Fortress Bird Avenue Yesterday. Before kick off it looked like the Clontarf team we were expecting. they had about 8 players on the pitch 25 mins before kick off but had 15 plus 5 subs on kick off. We fell very much into the trap of complacency with the exception of Brian Shahahan.
We played 1st half down the hill with a strong wind behind us driving in to the right corner as we looked down. From the kick off we could tell this was not going to be easy. Clontarf caught the ball set up a well organised maul and popped out to a strong running centre who broke a few tackled before getting stopped. This looked very much like a training ground move from a team that were not supposed to gave trained together. The 1st 20 minutes were owned by Clontarf with good controlled mauls and off loads in the tackle. Stillorgan could not get their hands on the ball. Thankfully all the possession Clontarf has was between the 2 10 meter lines. Only some big tackles from Baby Shanahan and Alan Fortune stopped the Clontarf momentum. One turn over on half was created a gap on their right side and good interplay from our backs saw Garrett rely meads Fanning finish off an undeserved try against the run of play. 7 - 0 Stillorgan after tims conversion. This lead was not long lived and Clontarf made steady progress up the hill and scored a converted try of their own 7 - 7. We are in a dog fight. Some good kicking from Tim & Liam got us back into their half this lead a 40 yard penalty converted by Tim 10 - 7 followed by a similar one 13 - 7 half time.
In the second half we knew what to expect as both their Out half and centre could kick the length of the pitch with the wind behind them. Stillorgan knew they were in an undeserved lead and responded well to doddsy's talk at half time. we started to do what Clontarf did to us in the 1st half and keep it tight for a while with a few pick and goes and then move it out wide. We scored a very good try with forwards setting up good ball fro Tim to make a break and off load to Mark harnett who picked an excellent line and broke several tackles to get over 5 meters from the touch line. Tim converted and some how we were 13 points up @ 20 - 7. Again Clontarf came right back at us through their Out half making a tackle on us and stripping the ball at the same time. From there Clontarf mauled 20 meters to get a well deserved try and bring them right back in the game. Thankfully they missed the conversion leaving a two score gap of 20 - 12. We held them out for the rest of the game and did play some good rugby into the wind. The last play of the game was Clontarf losing their line out on the half way line us hacking through for Baby Shanahan to collect and run the remaining 30 meters to go over in the corner and still make his way under the posts unopposed, Tim slotted the conversion leaving a final score of 27 - 12 a very false reflection of the game. But we scored the points so lets act on the positives and reduce the negatives going forward.
Second half we were playing down the mountain, we said we would play it in their half. We were putting them under pressure and they were not really making any breaks against us. We would get into their half but then give away a stupid penalty- this will hurt us against better teams. After another 10 mins we got our bonus point try with some lovelly mauling by the pack with either Pat fitz/johnny b getting the final touchdown. They were not happy with the decision and one of their forwards got sin binned. We continued to put the pressure but again we gave away stupid Penalties to relieve the pressure from them, the ref was sick of all our bitching. Eventually Pat Fitz had sympathy pangs for the other 2 Castleisland boys on the sideline and got himself sinbinned.
Positives
- we won 27 - 12 in a match we were possibly the 2nd best team
- Exceptional performance from Baby Shanahan ( Don't hurry back Padraig ??)
- Defence was good even if we let in 2 tries
- we adapted well to the game in 2nd half
- Roly Meads Fanning was happy with the scrum ( But commented the line out needs to be better)
Room for improvement
- Line out didn't work as well with different set of jumpers
- Concentration - we did not play this game for 38 mins of 1st half
- Never under estimate your opponents as we did yesterday
All in all well done in a game we could have lost we won well and it should focus us to take on a strong Barnhall team that won 64 - 0 yesterday.
Match report by Garrett Fanning