Oh dear, oh dear, what an evening of comedy and tragedy in Castle Avenue on Friday as a highly motivated, frothing, but somewhat limited Terenure side hurled themselves, as expected, on the Clontarf 15.
This was not a surprise, however, any expectation that the home side would be armoured for the assault was disabused as the home supporters were served up, not Robocop, but Keystone Cops in a shambles of a game.
In the middle of this chaos was a guest international referee, Glen Jackson, who seemed a little bemused at the frenzy as it unfolded around him. His work at the breakdown was exemplary although how he managed a penalty count of 14 nil against the visitors in the first 30 minutes without issuing a yellow card is beyond me. Also, as pointed out by the more cerebral home supporters, he would be used to his linesmen policing offside behind him and advising accordingly through the link up. This was not available and consequently he refereed what was in front of him while the defenders over his shoulder ignored the offside line at will.
The result was messy slow ball that, more often than not, set up the outside backs for a hammering from the flying defence. In the circumstances this suited the visitors who grew in stature as the game unfolded helped by an opening score to fullback James O’Donohue after the home defence went missing.
In the second half Clontarf dug in and after a horrendous sliced kick out of defence went straight to Sam Cronin, the Tarf scrum half slid a kick deep into the ‘Nure 22 where the relieving kick was blocked and hooker Aaron Dundon fell on it for the home sides opening try. Shortly afterwards centre Matt Darcy scored a beauty after fast ball and fast hands from Joey Carbury saw him through a gap on the ‘Nure 10 metre line. That pushed the score out to 18 – 7 and all expected ‘Tarf to push on. However, Terenure upped their game and a mauled score to lock Mike Murphy converted by Jake Swaine made sure that hearts would be beating franticly until the final whistle. And so they were.
At the end it was hard not to sympathise with the visitors who only earned a losing bonus point for their committed effort. Tarf will be happy that this game is behind them. Their pursuit of consistency goes on.