Tony Leen: When the cigar smoke clears, CBC will still be wondering, how?

A pungent whiff hung over Musgrave Park, that sense of high drama and derring-do when it mattered most – in a Cup semi-final’s short minutes

THRILLER: PBC players erupt with joy at the final whistle in Musgrave Park. Picture: Laszlo Geczo, Inpho

The waft of festival chips and curry was unmistakable, as were the bellicose terrace anthems and the sight of shirtless, paint-daubed eccentrics. Like infidels at an Istanbul derby, students from Pres and Christians were restricted to far ends of the main stand at Musgrave Park, sharing only stares and growls. ‘Is that a library over there?’ 

Between them was a slice of nostalgia, old boys from Pres and Christians in fawn overcoats and leather gloves rekindling old wars and truces. Whatever they may have lost in pace and agility, some had lost little in voice as they egged on school saplings.

The most pungent whiff of all though at Thursday’s battle for the high ground of Cork schools rugby, was that of high drama and derring-do when it mattered most – in the Cup semi-final’s shortest minutes.

For CBC, the denouement had a faintly larcenous feel about it. 19-7 to the good with seven minutes of the seventy remaining, it was easy to empathise with their shell-shocked state after the poise and control they had toiled an hour for was torpedoed in the harbour mouth by an outrageous Presentation comeback.

Twice afterwards, the CBC head coach Tommy Crowe reached for “bitter pill” and “bitter Cup experience” and it was a good a word as any to articulate their sense of devastation. 

The argument across the codes never changes – that PBC had to go the longer route to the semi-final might have been an unwanted blessing. However, once Christians had equalised on the stroke of half-time and, after finding sea legs, catapulted themselves into what seemed an unassailable position with two tries, there was no indication of the impending capitulation.

It is easy to thrust Pres full-back, Ben O’Connor, into the starring role in this act of Cup escapology, but no less appropriate for doing so. While many will point to his equalising try in the 70th minute and the outrageous touchline conversion that completed the turnaround, it might be forgotten that it was his raking diagonal rangefinder late in the piece that triggered the final onslaught.

CBC’s Ben Lynch, himself a 45th-minute try-scorer from a crossfield kick, might have been the celebrated full back in an alternative ending, but in this 68th minute O’Connor’s kick forced him to play the ball and he was dragged into touch. It gave Pres precious momentum and field position.

O’Connor had spread the possession wide for Sean Condon to kickstart the comeback at 7-19 and O’Connor arrowed the conversion over in a manner so emphatic that a former Pres boy watching in La Rochelle puffed out his cheeks. For their coach Ger Burke, that was the money kick, not the later one.

“In fairness to Ben, he might have made a couple of errors in the game, but the guy has nerves of steel, he is a player for the big moments. The first conversion off the touchline is actually more impressive than the second one, because he turned that into a nervy finish for CBC. If he’s missing that, it’s 19-12 and we still needed a try and conversion to draw.” 

KILLER: A distraught Christian Kilbride at the final whistle

Burke’s contention that the scoreboard was an unreliable reflection of the game’s ebb and flow has more than a grain of truth about it. Pres had more about them in the first half but after flanker Fionn Roussel’s 28th-minute try, CBC would grab the game’s next three five-pointers. 

There was a level of poise about CBC half-backs Daire Burke and Jack Casey, the latter squeezing over for the game’s second try just before the break. Pres went down the half-time tunnel fearing they had relinquished the joystick.

“It was daunting, but we didn’t want to finish the year like we had started it - with a lack of belief and making mistakes - because that wasn’t us anymore. We wanted the lads to give it holly for the last 15 minutes because they deserved to finish the year, if that’s what it was to be, like that. Jacob Sheahan stepped up as the captain and made some big carries, Ivor Dennehy likewise.” 

When Christians review the dramatic finale, most likely through their fingers, they will point to one or two moments of instability when they’d have been better cooling the semi-final temperature rather than kicking downfield.

All they were finding downfield was the business end of Ben O’Connor’s ambition. The Pres full-back has shown his prowess with St Finbarr’s and Cork in the GAA sphere, and he is blessed with powerful athleticism and fathomless ambition to carry him to the next tier. When he was asked after if he thought it was gone at 19-7, he wouldn’t permit the thought any traction.

WE'VE DONE IT: Ben O’Connor celebrates at the final whistle with Danny Sheahan.

“We believed in ourselves. We started slowly after half-time but we knew it was there, in us. We’ve been putting in the hours this year in training. It was just a question of getting it out of ourselves.” Amid all the hollering and cigar smoke afterwards, there was no cup. Crescent or Bandon will show up in March with scant regard for Houdini acts and PBC’s coaching team recognise that.

“We already referenced Mayo beating Dublin in the All-Ireland semi-final last year. I remember saying that I couldn’t see those guys coming back for a final. We’re in the same boat. Bandon have beaten us at the start of the year and Crescent beat us in the first round of the Cup, so we’ve absolutely no room for complacency. We would need to be as good as we were at times - minus those few mistakes, of course.”