Lynn has Dolphin sweating for win

Dolphin 24 St Mary’s College 18

With the lead out to 24-3 at half-time, Dolphin appeared to be coasting. In the end they were hanging on grimly as St Mary’s out-half Barry Lynn took this game by the scruff of the neck and turned a canter into something of a stagger.

Still, there were few in the small crowd - not even St. Mary’s coach Brent Pope - who argued with the merit of the final outcome.

“We could have sneaked it in the end, but to be fair I suppose Dolphin deserved to win,” admitted Pope.

“Phew, that was a bit close for comfort in the end,” admitted Adams. “We gave away far too many penalties in the second half, but thankfully we had done enough in the first half.”

Dolphin certainly did the business in a one sided opening spell, notwithstanding Lynn’s early penalty strike.

John O’Mahony responded in kind within a few minutes and Mike Pettman showed the St Mary’s defence a clean pair of heels to score a fine 13th minute try that O’Mahony converted.

O’Mahony kicked a long range penalty midway through the half, added another penalty after 33 minutes and Pettman was in for his second try a minute later, thanks to excellent work from O’Mahony and Lennie Twomey.

The out-half added an injury time penalty to stretch the Dolphin lead to 21 points.

It was just as well for Lynn was inch perfect with his second half goal kicking. He knocked one over after three minutes, added another ten minutes later and then drilled over three in quick succession, in the 24th, 26th and 29th minutes to push the home side to the limit.

In Belfast, Cork Constitution emerged with a narrow victory in a tense struggle against Belfast Harlequins.

Although Constitution scored tries from Des Murray and Tomas O’Leary, the real damage was done by Pat McCarthy, whose late strike was enough to give the Cork side their second victory in succession.

Lacking in bonus points Con have, however, to be happy with fourth place in a table led by Ballymena.

The Eaton Park outfit were never troubled when they visited Galwegians at Crowley Park and emerged triumphant with a 32-6 win, scoring four tries in the process.

Shannon will be well pleased with their 26-8 win over Dungannon at Stevenson Park and the result continued a sequence of Shannon wins over their Ulster rivals.

Prop forward Tony Buckley grabbed two tries and the accurate kicking of out-half Andrew Thompson embellished a good afternoon’s work from Shannon, whose pack ensured they travelled back to Limerick with a well deserved win.

Garryowen had to sweat for their narrow win over last year’s beaten league finalists Clontarf at Dooradoyle.

It was always a close contest and never as scary as in the final few minutes.

Clontarf led 16-8 at the interval and 16-14 as the minutes ticked away. Mark Connolly got a late penalty chance and made no mistake to secure the points for the light blues who now find themselves in fifth position.

County Carlow continued their winning ways with a finely executed victory over Blackrock College at Stradbrook.

Maurice Logue was their hero when he scored two tries of the 24 points total and that was crucial on the day. Blackrock’s consolation is that they picked up a bonus point for their efforts.

Buccaneers achieved a similar reward in their 21-25 defeat by UCD.