This game had everything you could want from a rugby match except the critical skills of accuracy and control.
Terenure arrived to the Northside with the justifiable expectation that Clontarf were waiting in the long grass for them, armed for bear, as they say in hunting circles. The only problem was when we raised our gun to shoot we fell over our shoelaces and fired at the ground or the sky.
To be fair , despite looking powerful on paper with essentially most of the side who beat the Barbarians last year turning out; it takes more than few training sessions to get back the fluidity that devastated the opposition in many games last year. What transpired was a performance full of effort but lacking in glue at critical times. Terenure defended the Clontarf waves with commendable courage and a little dollop of professional cynicism also which yielded penalty after penalty for killing the ball and offside but little else in terms of sanction from the referee. Clontarf helped the Terenure cause by saving their errors for critical times in the game and generally when home momentum seemed certain to yield a breakthrough.
In the credit column, the Tarf defence was outstanding again and closed out Terenure for large parts of the game. In the end the two sides scored a try each , one to Robert Duke in the first quarter after a slick offload in the tackle from Shane Donovan and one to Liam Og Murphy in the third after multiple phases of ‘Tarf slam bang under the Terenure posts.
The game ended with Clontarf defending in their own 22 and sportingly returning any turned over possession with alarming regularity. It was left to the agonisingly late substitute Rob Keogh to deal with a dirty little cross kick in a storm of hailstones with a cool mark and a grateful belt into touch.
On Friday evening in Templeville Road we take on a resurgent St Marys side who have found form just when they needed it and are slowly digging their way out of the relegation graveyard.
The game kicks off under lights at 7.30 pm.