Awesome Shannon destroy Lansdowne

Clanwilliam became a home from home on Saturday, Shannon putting their feet under the table and settling in nicely. One of the chief pretenders came a visiting and were left looking decidedly pretentious. As for the champions? They're back.

The notion that this might prove the lift-off to their season came to fruition. From first to last Shannon were awesome, out-tackling, out-thinking and out-playing Lansdowne in every facet of the game. Apart from that, you might say, it was a close contest.

The 20-point wind-assisted salvo in the opening period fairly blew Lansdowne away. But in many respects, the 15 points without reply into the second-half wind was even more imposing.

The nil part will have given them as much satisfaction as anything. When Lansdowne came knocking repeatedly for a spell in the final quarter, the outstanding Eddie Halvey, Anthony Foley and Paul Burke made successive tackles.

In the event Mark McDermott pinched turnover ball on the deck and 90 seconds later rounded off the pitch-length riposte. Manoeuvring a breakaway overlap for Andrew Thompson, Shannon then took on a punchdrunk Lansdowne eight some more, Alan Quinlan and the mighty Mick Galwey making the inroads before offloading to the supporting McDermott. Awesome.

Ultimately, Lansdowne were fortunate that they didn't concede more. Six tries to nil tells a much truer tale, for Andrew Thompson missed five out of seven kicks. But here again Shannon seem invariably to judge these things perfectly.

When they need Thompson to deliver he invariably does, as with the six from six in the two-point win over Blackrock - his ensuing and surprising demotion perhaps explaining the drop in confidence.

Even so, Shannon still erased the memory of their opening day thrashing in Ballymena as well as the damage to their points differential. Hence, they leaped from ninth to fifth in the AIB league Division One table, ominously onto the fringes of the play-off places and with games in hand on three of the sides above them.

Michael Cosgrave and Kurt McQuilkin, who cited the comparative first-up tackle count as a major factor in this thumping, will have a hard task healing the psychological scars of this game. In fairness both men have maintained all along that Lansdowne haven't been playing that well and here, finally, even their defence cracked.

The starting point though, as ever, were the set-pieces. As only he can Halvey - held in the air by Galwey and John Hayes for an age - pilfered Lansdowne's defensive lineout and after Alan Quinlan was held up, Hayes managed the touchdown in front of Murray Whyte, who highlighted a fine, peripheral performance by being excellently placed for all the scores.

Pressure on the Lansdowne scrum yielded another attacking platform and though Paul Grimes was able to locate Colin McEntee at six in the line, whereas Shannon controlled their own set-piece ball Lansdowne's was always under pressure.

The damage in the loose was even greater. All the big guns delivered, as did young Marcus Horan and Hayes, and the outstanding Galwey lead the charge with countless ball-in-hand drives - no doubt as a riposte to his omission from the national squad.

Local hero Quinlan also had a big hand in most of the scores - his long raking kick along the line laying the platform for the second score. Eschewing the possibility of three points for, as it turned out, the probability of seven points with every close-range penalty, Shannon were able to rumble forward off Darragh Kirby's uncontested takes; McDermott getting the touchdown.

Conor Burke had his most convincing game yet in a Shannon shirt, varying his kicking and running game effectively, and using the chip ahead to good effect, notably when forcing David O'Mahony to concede the five-metre scrum from which Burke put Paul McMahon over with a running skip pass.

The fourth try was carved on home turf, Quinlan feeding Lacey who stepped inside one and outside another for a well-taken blind-side score. Lacey has never looked so elated. He preferred his second ("I had more work to do") when Quinlan made the turnover tackle for the lively McDermott to attack blind, locate Horan on the wing with a skip pass and Lacey won the race to the prop's clever grubber.

Sheepishly, he admitted his man-of-the-match award was "a home-town decision" for the son of the nearby Royal Hotel owner but his dream-day still compared more than favourably to a two-try Euro Cup day in Cardiff or anything else.

"People asked me did I feel under pressure? The complete opposite. It was fantastic playing out on that pitch again. It's more home than Thomond Park for me because it really is my home. You could hear the voices in the crowd and put a name on them. I even spotted where my parents were standing behind the end-line when I scored my first try. This has to be one of the biggest days of my life."

With Clanwilliam likely to host one, and maybe both, of Shannon's forthcoming games against Terenure and Garryowen, the partisanship of the 4-5,000 crowd more than justified the tag "home".

All the old Shannon virtues were restored, intriguingly Pat Murray citing the "discipline" as the most pleasing aspect of their display. Indeed, Shannon conceded only one penalty in the first half-hour.

Lansdowne, truly, had nought to take from the game. Their big names up front hardly featured, and once again Barry Everitt's contribution was negligible behind a beaten pack. They invested heavily during the close-season in acquiring some new big names, but as Saturday emphasised yet again, you can't buy what Shannon have.

Scoring Sequence: 7 mins: J Hayes try, 5-0; 17: McDermott try, 10-0; 26: P McMahon try, 15-0; 36: Lacey try, 20-0; 47: Thompson penalty, 23-0; 66: Lacey try, 28-0; 71: McDermott try, Thompson conversion, 35-0.

Shannon: B Roche; J Lacey, P McMahon, R Ellison, A Thompson; C Burke, S Johnson; M Horan, M McDermott, J Hayes, M Galwey, D Kirby, A Quinlan, A Foley (capt), E Halvey. Replacements: C McMahon for Kirby (52 mins), F McNamara for Johnson (62 mins), N Healy for Foley (72 mins).

Lansdowne: R Kearns; M Dillon, B Glennon, K McQuilkin (capt), N Gunne; B Everitt, D O'Mahony; R Corrigan, P Grimes, A McKeen, S O'Connor, G Fulcher, S McEntee, C McEntee, L Toland. Replacements: G Quinn for O'Connor (76 mins), E Bohan for McKeen (76 mins).

Referee: M Whyte (Leinster).