Firstly, apologies for missing the report on the Dolphin game, I was a little distracted over the Christmas period. Apart from that, the performance versus Dolphin left nothing much to write about anyway given that there were 30 Turkeys on the pitch. Unfortunately the home turkeys managed to gobble up 9 points against our 3 leaving Clontarf with a strong dose of group indigestion.
Needless to say after that hapless performance, strong words were spoken, emetics delivered, and heads etc. were cleared for the impending visit of the Champions Old Belvedere.
And boy did Belvo suffer the proverbial backlash. Frankly, had Clontarf been a little more accurate in the first half they would have been out of sight by half time. As it was they delivered a fearsome battering to Old B which forced the defending visitors into a massive tackle count and the attrition on bodies and minds that accompanies full on defence. The half time score of 6 nil to Tarf gave no indication of the home dominance serving merely to keep the home supporters nervous that the Tarf efforts had not been reflected on the scoreboard.
They need not have worried because the second half had barely started when Belvo, not surprisingly, fell apart under the renewed Clontarf assault and in the first 15 minutes after half time conceded 3 tries to a now overpowering home attack.
The first came from Noel Reid after man of the match Killian Lett snapped up a ball at the back of a ruck and charged around the side into open space, the second and third came after the visitors failed to defend their own kick offs which were returned through some weak tackling by Ben Reilly and Adrian Darcy in to the secondary defence which was shredded by fast hands for Sam Cronin and Killian Lett to make the line. Noel Reid added his second and Tarf’s fourth at the death for the bonus point.
So a satisfactory bounce back after Cork and a display of intensity and aggression that was, in the end, overpowering.
Peter Walsh