AIB League: Dungannon clinch AIL title

Dungannon are the AIB League champions for 2001 following a 46-12 victory over last year's champions Cork Con at Lansdowne Road.

Cork Con started well despite being without injured Anthony Horgan and their influential out-half Ronan O'Gara, who is away on Lions duty.

Conor Mahony opened the scoring inside two minutes with a drop goal.

However Dungannon out-half David Humphries struck two penalties in the next five minutes to give Dungannon the lead.

Brian O'Meara equalised with a penalty for Cork Con on 20 minutes but for the remainder of the first half it was one-way traffic in Dungannon's favour.

After a period of considerable pressure, Stephen Bell scored an opportunistic try straight from the scrum. Humphries converted.

Crucially, Brain O'Meara missed two out of three penalties during this time to leave the half time score at 16-9.

10 minutes into the second half, Jonathan Bell scored a try after Tony McWhirter demonstrated skill under pressure to hold up the ball.

In the final five minutes, Dungannon went over for another two tries.

Man of the match David Humphries converted both and chipped in with a penalty to leave the final score 46-12.

A minute's silence was observed before the game for former Cork Con prop Trevor Barry who died mid-week.