Horgan’s cameo inspires Con

HE’S not quite the old dog for the hard road just yet, but Anthony Horgan’s experience was certainly of use to Cork Constitution as they qualified for the AIB All-Ireland League decider with a second win over Dolphin in eight days on Saturday.

Horgan bowed out of rugby almost a year ago, coming off the bench to score a try in Munster’s 36-10 Magners League-winning victory over the Ospreys, sealing his place in the province’s history as its all-time top try scorer with 41.

But with Con’s resources severely depleted by Munster call-ups, the 33-year-old was happy to step into the breach, despite being somewhat short on game time.

“The last time I played? That was in a Legends game (Ireland vs England) in London in February. But it’s slightly different when you’re playing with 40-year-olds and can come on and off as you please,” he smiled.

“It’s nice to be back helping the club out, but unfortunately that will be it. I don’t like coming up here when I haven’t been training, and taking young fellas’ places. I know they were stuck today but they should have full numbers for the final, so I’ll take a step back and leave them at it.”

A veteran of 142 Munster appearances over 12 seasons, Horgan’s rugby brain is still in fine nick, as he showed when putting Ed Leamy in for a game-changing try in the second half.

Dolphin had also seen their stars whisked away for Munster duty, and their resources were further stretched as first-choice scrum-half Sam Cronin found himself stuck in Germany with flights grounded due to volcanic ash.

But Steve Ford’s side had the impetus in the first half, seemingly galvanised by the carrot of gazumping their great rivals at the semi-final stage.

Con have finished top of the pile for four seasons running, but only claimed one title in that time, and Horgan admitted they were rattled at the break.

“It was to be expected,” he said. “They put in a poor performance by their standards last weekend (in Con’s 23-13 regular season win), so they came out all guns blazing.

“At half time they had us seriously worried, they were running hard at us and our tackling wasn’t great, so we rightly got an earful at half-time. But we lifted the pace in the second half and I don’t think they could keep up with us.”

Dolphin’s lineout coughed up constant streams of ball last week, but was transformed into a valuable source of possession as they owned the first quarter.

Barry Keeshan’s sweetly-struck drop-goal got them off the mark, before centre Eric Moloney galloped through a gap in the Con midfield for an unconverted score on 19 minutes.

But Con hit back with an opportunist try of some class. Richie Lane’s attempts to take a quick lineout inside his own half appeared to have been thwarted, but Dolphin went to sleep as they sidled up to the set-piece, allowing Lane to set Cronan Healy free.

The livewire wing offloaded sweetly back to Lane, who burned the cover on the outside before converting and tacking on a penalty for a 10-8 lead.

Lane and Keeshan swapped penalties, before Dolphin struck what seemed to be a vital blow in the dying seconds of a breathless opening half, back-rower Robbie Allen gathering an overthrown five-metre lineout for a soft score.

Keeshan added the extras to leave the score at 18-13, only for another Lane penalty and Leamy’s try to reestablish Con’s advantage.

Confirmation that momentum had swung Con’s way came from the backlines. Whereas Dolphin did all their passing too far behind the gain line, Con found the holes where it mattered.

A fine outside break from Leamy saw him put Duncan Williams away, before some fine build-up work from man-of-the-match Frank Cogan helped create space for prop Martin Gately to crash over and confirm a final date with St Mary’s College on May 8.

So ends Dolphin’s season, but Ford saw enough to leave him confident for the future: “They prey on mistakes and they got points off our mistakes, and it cost us. You can’t do that against quality teams.

“But as I said to them in the changing room, the effort has been fantastic. We achieved our aim of a play-off spot, and really put ourselves in the shop window as one of the top sides in the country. We like where we are and we want to continue that.”

Scorers for Cork Con: E Leamy, D Williams, M Gately try each; R Lane try, 3 pens, con

Scorers for Dolphin: E Moloney, R Allen try each; B Keeshan drp gl, pen, con

CORK CONSTITUTION: R Lane; A Horgan, A Ryan, E Ryan (capt), C Healy; D Lyons, D Williams; M Gately, R Quinn, S Archer; M O’Connell, B Hayes; I Nagle, E Leamy, F Cogan.

Replacements: C Jouve for Horgan (73), G Murray for Gately (76).

DOLPHIN: N O’Driscoll; R Kenneally, E Moloney, K Lynch, P Hurley; B Keeshan (capt), M Purcell; R O’Neill, A O’Driscoll, C Condon; C Rowe, K O’Dwyer; F Stone, R Geoghegan, R Allen.

Replacements: C Bohane for Kenneally (29, inj), K Murray for A O’Driscoll (54, inj), G Finn for Geoghegan (60), A Foley for O’Neill (71), T Keogh for O’Dwyer (73), D McCarthy for Purcell (73), C O’Flynn for Lynch (80).

Referee: G Clancy (IRFU).