The best lesson in Irish persistence is the 17-year-old heading to his first dance. Double showered, clean clothes, and enough aftershave to get a reaction from a Geiger counter. Awaiting our hero is a hostile (seemingly) line of females. All bent on the public humiliation of the opposite gender. Down the line he goes with his simple request ….. refusal after refusal.
Undaunted he persists. Confident that his hours of rehearsal and mental prep will bring success. And of course it does …… and such is life, trust the process, if at first you don’t succeed blah blah blah.
On Saturday Clontarf walked down the line with their process and in the end, the VERY end, it paid off.
Up until the final quarter, it had the look of a frustrating day. Tarf dominated possession but, having given Con a 10 point lead, had to manage the high emotion of chasing a game against a motivated home defence. Accuracy suffered in the tension and a litany of spilled ball in the pass and messy rucks looked like being the visitors lot for the day.
As we moved into the final quarter with the score 16 6 to Con, the game was slipping, but as the bench was introduced Clontarf’s possession dominance was boosted by an increase in accuracy and tempo. This was ominous for Con who had, to this point, defended their lead well, digging deep into their bag of tricks which has liberal texts on the dark arts of slowing ball and buying penalties.
With 10 to go Tarf struck hard. A big carry by John Vinson saw the ball moved left where Aaron Coleman (nuisance # 1) put Aitzol King away down the wing where he bashed his way to two yards. The pack accepted the invitation and after a few shuddering lunges the ball was whipped to Tadgh Bird (nuisance # 2), who pivoted to score. Con Kelly added the extras for 16 13 and we strapped in for the finish.
And boy, what a finish.
Con fought manfully to keep Tarf away from their 22 and damn nearly succeeded. But as the clock moved towards full time, the dam burst.
From a long defensive kick Aitzol carried hard into contact. After the next phase the ball was passed to Tadgh Bird, who ghosted through two tackles and flew into the home 22 batting away defenders. He was finally stopped in front of the home posts where the ball was moved right to Mark O’Sullivan, who had the rugby nous and the skill to realise that this was a Hollywood moment.
The skip pass was perfection. In wine terms it would be Chateau Petrus. It landed to Aitzol who didn’t need to break stride to make the corner for the winning score. Even the linesman got in on the excitement by raising his flag in error to acknowledge the try momentarily confusing the ref and causing palpitations among the visiting support. Con Kelly added the conversion from the sideline for 16 20 at full time.
As a sidebar many attendees will have noticed some activity during the game around Ivan Soroka (nuisance # 3, 4 and 5 ). Well ….. the secret is out. Ivan is, in fact, The Incredible Hulk. ….. So when he gets angry (always angry), he has a tendency to burst out of his clothes. This phenomenon starts slowly with his feet. On Saturday, Ivan got angry and his expanding feet caused his boots to explode! …. There it is …. Nothing to see here.
Many thanks to all of our Jersey Sponsors
Thanks also to
Peter Walsh for the words and Michael Sheridan for the photos