Con fans breathe easy again

ARE THE rugby players of Cork Constitution in league with the cardiologists of Cork?

At Castle Avenue on Saturday, and for the sixth time in their nine wins in this season’s Division One title race, Con went to the very brink of defeat before snatching a frantic last-gasp victory, taking their loyal core of fans to the brink of cardiac arrest in the process.

In fact speaking of arrest, the entire Cork Con side should have found themselves travelling by Paddy-wagon to the clink rather than by luxury coach back to Cork after this thrilling encounter. This was larceny on a grand scale.

In good rugby conditions, Con led 17-0 after 31 minutes courtesy of tries from outstanding blindside flanker Ultan O’Callaghan and centre Cian Mahony (directly opposing his brother Conor), both converted by Pat McCarthy, who also added a penalty.

Even though they had strong wind at their backs, the visitors looked a clearly superior outfit, Clontarf struggling for cohesion with one unforced error after another. Ominous signs alright in the last five minutes of that half as Clontarf began to put it together and when Darragh O’Shea touched down just before the break, it left just twelve points in it, 17-5.

Still, the seventeen point margin was restored shortly after half-time when Con left-wing Tomas O’Leary, showing the combination of pace, courage, vision and tactical awareness that promises a bigger future stage, scored a fine individual try that included a break, chip, sprint, then a soccer-style dribble to the in-goal area.

Just at the point when the visiting fans were beginning to feel comfortable however, came the Clontarf comeback. All game the home pack had been competitive, their mauling off lineout ball particularly impressive, now the backs chimed in and in wave after pounding wave, from the 6th to the 16th minute they swamped the Con defence, crashed over for three fine tries, all converted by McAllister.

Aussie scrum-half Ben Wakely burst through the middle for the first, then flying winger Niall O’Brien, to prove that his late game-winning double against Buccaneers last weekend was no fluke, added a brace. 26-22: this was now very much Clontarf’s game to win. How they failed defied logic, certainly defied the thinking of puzzled coach Phil Werahiko.

“To go ahead fifteen minutes into the second half, looking like we could pull away, then this. It seems we’re too willing to settle for what we have once we go in front instead of pushing ahead. We protected when we should have been attacking, probably kicked away too much ball as well. We got two points out of the game (four tries scored, three-point loss), but it’s not even a consolation at this stage. A top four finish was our ambition at the beginning of the year but this result has set us back.”

Werahiko had every right to criticise his side, but great credit too must go to Con. Time after time they worked themselves forward into the Clontarf half, time after time they were beaten back, usually with long raking wind-assisted kicks deep into their own half, yet the heads never dropped. This is a team on a mission, and eventually, incredibly, centre Jean-Vincent Igarza got the game-winning try. The time? Seventh minute of injury time.

“We’ve gone eight minutes into injury-time, against Blackrock, earlier in the season”, grinned coach David Corkery, “so we’re well over the heart-attack stage by now. We were comprehensively beaten in the second half but the lads stuck to their task, got two more tries, got the bonus point, most of all, got the win. Some people might say we’re lucky, but I think they deserve absolutely everything they get, they never, ever, ever give up, absolutely outstanding.”

Leader of those lads, in every sense, is open-side and captain Jerry Murray. As the Con cheers and battle-hymn rang out in the background, he stood in the corridor, in a daze. “Today was a good performance by us. We stuck at it, kept doing the same old thing, went back at them, didn’t lose heart. That was the main thing, and I suppose the fact that we have been coming back so often was a factor also: it helped us out today.”

Referee: G. Doyle (U.R.S.)