Shannon win keeps hopes alive

SPRIGHTLY veterans Mick Galwey (2) and Eddie Halvey scored the tries that kept alive Shannon’s hopes of retaining the AIB League title and plunged their Limerick neighbours UL/Bohemians ever deeper into relegation trouble.

Saturday’s game between co-hosts at Thomond Park was an extraordinary affair in that Shannon took an early eight point lead, found themselves behind by the same margin at the interval and then romped their way through a one-sided second half to take all five points on offer and look extremely impressive in the process.

The versatile Colm McMahon finished off a spectacular Shannon counterattack to score their first try on seven minutes and Andrew Thompson knocked over a penalty shortly afterwards. However, UL/Bohs weren’t prepared to take this lying down. A couple of penalties by Ian Costello narrowed the gap, Brian Buckley was sin binned and suddenly Shannon were on the back foot as right winger Brian Tuohy outpaced them from all of seventy metres. Costello’s conversion followed by his third penalty had the champions reeling.

“We struggled for much of the first half and simply didn’t perform at the rucks, too many fellas trying to get the ball in their hands”, lamented coach Geoff Moylan. However, the harsh words he uttered at the half time break clearly had the desired affect and they were ruthless and clinical in sweeping their inexperienced opponents aside.

Galwey rumbled over from a close range line-out for his first try five minutes after the restart and Thompson converted. Shannon were back in front with a Thompson penalty and then Galwey popped up in the right corner (taking a leaf from Mick O’Driscoll’s book in the same spot where he scored that famous try for Munster against Gloucester) for his second, Thompson converting with a fine kick.

Another Thompson penalty was followed by a superb Eddie Halvey try which clinched the bonus point before Thompson’s third penalty wrapped up the scoring.

“We targeted five points from this game and we got them”, said a satisfied Geoff Moylan. “There are areas where we will have to improve and we still have a lot of ground to make up. But the good news is that we have yet to meet the teams who are also challenging for the 3rd and 4th places in the table, Blackrock, Garryowen, Buccaneers, Dungannon and Belfast Harlequins, so it’s in our hands really. We’re getting fellas back both from Munster duty and injury and we had a very strong bench today. Trevor Hogan, for example, came on in the second half and did very well”.