Fit O’Gara shows he’s back to best

UL Bohemian 15

Whether it was ever possible to do enough to displace David Humphreys for Saturday’s Six Nations clash with France is a moot point, but in propelling his club side clear of the AIB League relegation zone, he has surely done enough to warrant a place on the replacements.

Con skipper Ian Murray took little convincing that his out-half is ready to return to the international fold: “He just oozes class and this result just proves how we miss guys like him, like Frankie Sheahan and Jim Williams. Murray tipped O’Gara to push David Humphreys all the way for a place in the team to meet France.

“I think this performance proves that Ronan has picked up where he let off. He was playing brilliantly up to the Celtic League final and I’m sure he would have been number one had he come through that game.

“It may sound like parochial bias but I reckon he is still the best out half in the country.”

O’Gara is intent on keeping his head down and not worry too much about the immediate future.

“My main concern about this game was to get through it. You would always be worried coming back from injury but the warm-up went well and I really didn’t think about it once I got on the pitch.”

His biggest concern was, in fact, a slight thigh muscle strain he picked up when he resumed kicking training in earnest last week.

“It was just a little bit stiff, but I had to be careful not to push it too hard. It didn’t cause me that much trouble. It was just a question of doing a few stretching exercises to make sure nothing went wrong.”

O’Gara was delighted to have played his part in the victory but quickly pointed out that it was an excellent team performance.

“I thought the team mixed the play very well and there were some top individual displays as well. Six tries was a good return for the effort made.”

James O’Neill struck first with a shock UL Bohemian try after five minutes but Constitution hit back strongly and led 22-8 at the break with tries from Derek Dillon, Frankie Sheahan and O’Gara who also kicked two conversions.

Dave O’Brien added a drop goal for Con while Ian Costello kicked a penalty for the home side.

Ronan O’Donovan got in for an early second half try that O’Gara converted and, after Philip Van Esbeck scored for Bohemians (converted by Costello), Con had the last say with a second try from Dillon and another from Jerry Murray, one of which was converted by O’Gara.

The final scoreline was somewhat flattering to Constitution because it didn’t take into account a brave second half performance by this inexperienced Bohemians side.

The home side pulled Con back to 14 points and spurned a perfect opportunity to further reduce the arrears when substitute Sean O’Gorman lost the ball over the line.

Still, Con coach Christy Cantillon was delighted with the result. “We controlled the game for most of the first half and seemed to ease off for some of the second. Yet, we were never in any real trouble and I was happy with the way we hit back to score a couple of tries near the end.”

Overall, Constitution had most of the aces but Bohs will be pleased with the way they engineered and finished off a 50th minute try scoring chance against a stronger Constitution pack.

They also had good performances from captain Anthony O’Gorman and his back row partners James O’Neill and Anthony Hartigan.

Coach Mike Tewkesbury and other club members bemoaned the fact that they have lost other games by narrow margins and that they are now struggling against relegation.

“It could all come down to a battle between ourselves and Co Carlow. Hopefully we will stay up. If we do, I believe we are good enough to take advantage of the experience gained and do much better next season,” Cantillon offered words of encouragement:

“When they got a bit of possession they had plenty of shape. The difference in this game was the fact that we had the benefit of having some really high class players available to us.

“If you took our professional players out of the equation, it would surely have been a much more difficult game for us.”

Clontarf continued their domination of the division with a well constructed 32-10 victory over County Carlow.

They are now eight points ahead of second placed Lansdowne, who duly defeated Garryowen at Dooradoyle and look certain to earn themselves a home draw in the semi-finals.

Blackrock and Shannon are still locked closely together in sixth and seventh positions.

Their game was postponed because of a water-logged pitch at Stradbrook and two other ties, between Terenure and Belfast Harlequins and UCD and St Mary’s College, were also called off.

*Paul Burke kicked five conversions and two penalties in Harlequins’ 48-41 Zurich Premiership defeat to Bristol yesterday