County Carlow moved to second in the table when registering their third win of the campaign following a fine display at Castle Avenue on Saturday. Their never-say-die attitude was rewarded with tries in the final seven minutes.

Carlow's pack drove Clontarf back relentlessly from early on. That said, their territorial dominance was not mirrored on the scoreboard and at half-time the two teams were locked on six points.

The home side's best spell came early in the second half and they edged ahead once more in the 42nd minute when Jimmy Dempsey landed a drop goal.

But Carlow took the lead in the 73rd minute. Matt Spiller went over for a try in the right corner. They had to wait until the closing moments to finally seal victory when Ian Dwyer touched down in the other corner.

Scoring sequence: 7 mins: J Dempsey pen 3-0; 18 mins: B Murphy pen 3-3; 20 mins: Dempsey pen 6-3; 26 mins: Murphy pen 6-6 half-time: 6-6. 42 mins: Dempsey drop goal 9-6; 73 mins: M Spiller try 9-11; 79 mins: I Dwyer try 9-16

CLONTARF: K Nowlan; O Winchester, J Downey, D O'Brien, A Reddan; J Dempsey, M Walls; W O' Kelly, M Kennedy, A Clarke, D Sheehan, A Wood, D Quinn, P Lynn, B Gissing. Replacements: R O'Reilly for Walls 65 mins, M Woods for Dempsey 68 mins, T Kiernan for Reddan 75 mins.

CO CARLOW: M Spiller; M Waterhouse, P Jones, R Armstrong, I Dwyer; B Murphy, R Jones; P Brennan, J Hannon, L Hannon, L O' Byrne, R Bolger, B Baggott, D Hyland, A Melville. Replacements: P Holden for O Byrne ht, Buckley for P Jones 65 mins, C Gee for J Hannon 65 mins, D Cox for Hyland 51 mins.

Referee: M Kilgore (Ulster).