Flying start for Galwey’s Shannon

Shannon 24 Blackrock College 11

The reigning champions made heavy weather of claiming the points and the standard of football from both sides was often depressingly low.

Shannon actually found themselves 11-10 behind after 48 minutes but once they had regained the lead there was never any doubt as to the outcome, with the final quarter played almost entirely in Blackrock territory.

“We know that as AIL champions everybody will want to beat us and to give Blackrock their due, they came at us from the start,” said Galwey.

“In spite of their early try in the second-half, I thought we were well in control and they never looked like scoring again. We have a lot of work done but a lot more to do.

“We have a big panel and it’s great to be able to bring on players of the calibre of Jerry Flannery and Mossie Lawler although we had to go into this game with five back-row forwards in our back five. We are currently a little short for second-rows with our captain Tom Hayes and Brian Buckley out injured and Trevor Hogan doing so well with Munster.”

To give Blackrock their due, they gave Shannon, historically a mighty forward force, plenty to think about up front where they were often the more potent force in the mauls and rucks.

As a unit, however, Shannon held the edge for most of the journey and even though Tom Cregan wound up with a personal total of 14 points, he also missed three penalties and a conversion that would normally have been well within his range.

Cregan and Conor Kilroy, who had a fine game at full-back for Blackrock, exchanged early penalties before the game’s outstanding player, David Quinlan, the Shannon number eight, crashed through some weak tackling and over the line for Shannon’s try which Cregan converted in the 10th minute.

At that point, it looked like being an easy day for the champions but they gradually lost their rhythm as “Rock” narrowed the gap with a second Kilroy penalty and they then gained added momentum when Stephen Keogh was sin-binned for illegally killing the ball.

However, the visitors failed to make an impression while he was off the field and Shannon were still 10-6 in front at the interval.

Blackrock enjoyed their best spell immediately after the resumption and a good move begun by a nice piece of running by Kilroy ended with Andy O’Neill skipping through with a man over for a well-taken try.

Kilroy missed the conversion but Blackrock held on to their lead for 11 minutes until Cregan found the target with a penalty. He could afford to miss a few and not see his side troubled.

Rock winger Michael Price was shown a card and as Shannon’s supremacy grew and grew, the late scores duly came from a couple of Cregan penalties followed by a try at the death from Keogh.

SHANNON: J. Lacey; T. Cregan, B. Tuohy, E. Cahill, D. O’Donovan; A. Thompson, F. O’Loughlin; F. Roche, N. Conroy, T. Buckley, E. Halvey, S. Keogh, C. McMahon, J. O’Connor, D. Quinlan.

Replacements: J. Flannery, G. McNamara and M. Lawler for Conroy, Roche and O’Donovan, all 49 mins; D. Delaney for Thompson 55.

BLACKROCK COLLEGE: C. Kilroy; A. Pinto, A. O’Neill, D. Quinlan, M. Price; P. O’Toole, P. Beirne; A. Sweeney, C. Gee, I. McLoughlin, D. Gannon, M. Legge, D. Dillon, R. Rodgers, S. Madigan.

Replacements: P. Caldwell for Beirne 57 mins; S. Abbott for Legge 68; C. Murphy for Murphy 69.

Referee: O. Trevor (Munster).