Clever switch of Keane and Staunton proves crucial

Garryowen yesterday managed what no other club in the top two flights of the AIB League achieved the previous day when recording an away win. That it occurred a short hop, skip and jump up the road at Rosbrien would only have made it sweeter, all the more so as it opened their account for the season.

Garrowen's failure to gain a single point in something of a transitional year and the vagaries of a local derby in a drizzly, heavily-overcast day obliged them to adopt a pragmatic approach yesterday.

They signalled their intent from the moment the teams lined up, with Killian Keane wearing the number 13 jersey but playing at outhalf in a swap with the gifted but hithterto out-of-sorts Jeremy Staunton.

The switch, previously implemented during the early part of last season after a couple of defeats, worked a treat. Keane provided the wise, controlling presence Garryowen needed, tackling hard against Crescent's litany of lumbering target runners and playing a particularly cute territorial game in the second half.

Staunton didn't have a huge amount of opportunities to show his superb running abilities; in fact he really only received one of note. But he made the most of it, sauntering over for Garryowen's first try of the campaign after 233 minutes of rugby and augmenting it with a conversion, making his return seven from seven, for a tally of 25 points.

Almost immediately you could see the confidence seeping through Garryowen's young team, and this was a well-timed restorative pick-me-up in advance of next Saturday's visit of high-flying Ballymena.

Garryowen's tryos have risen to the challenge impressively, none more so than 20-year-old number eight John O'Sullivan, the latest and most upwardly mobile of the Tralee clan who have shone in Irish rugby.

It looked ominous for Garryowen when they were shunted off their first put-in and the Crescent front row, with Des Clohessy and Mark Hayes prominent in the tight and the loose, continued to get down nice and low, and cause Garryowen problems.

Yet O'Sullivan's pick-ups were of superb quality, and incredibly by the second half it was Garryowen who were applying the pressure in the scrum as Old Crescent curiously wilted.

Garryowen, aware that Crescent like to play with the hill in the second half, won the toss and elected to give the home side first use of both the hill and the breeze. Even so Garryowen began the brighter, helped along the way by Crescent's concession of some daft penalties, notably Phil Glamuzina blatantly playing the ball from the wrong side of a ruck. Staunton thus outkicked Brian Begley by three penalties to one - the latter hit the outside of the upright with a straight 40-metre effort.

An elusive counter-attack from close to the touchline by the lively Billy Treacy and Begley's punt established good field position from which Treacy scored after Eoin Reddan had sniped tellingly. Begley converted to give the home side a 10-9 interval lead.

However, by the time Old Crescent again troubled the scoreboard, Garryowen had scored 19 unanswered points.

Buoyed by an unexpectedly big shove on a Crescent put-in which Staunton converted into three points, the rampaging O'Sullivan, Paul Neville and David Wallace came into their own.

All the while Garryowen's territorial supremacy grew as Keane pulled the strings, kicking to the corners or exposing Begley to a debilitating aerial bombardment.

While not conceding a second-half penalty themselves, Garryowen eased into a 21-10 lead as Staunton unerringly bisected the posts and Keane landed a meaty drop goal before Staunton availed of O'Sullivan's hard yards, Keane's skip pass and a slip by Wayne Munn to apply the coup de grace.

Crescent made few inroads under fierce Garryowen pressure and tackling, and had to rely on break-outs such as the one which earned them a consolation try - admittedly a superb one as David Bowles and Glamuzina led the breakout before Treacy worked a switch with Munn inside halfway for the centre to score with a wide, arcing run.

"When you're bottom of the table and playing a local derby any win will do," explained Keane almost apologetically afterwards, though he had no need to.

"We were in dire straits and other sides were pulling away. While it's early days the longer you stay down there the worse it gets. It wasn't pretty but it was an important win."

Scoring Sequence: 6 mins: Staunton pen, 0-3; 18: Staunton pen, 0-6; 24: Begley pen, 3-6; 27: Staunton pen, 3-9; 34: Treacy try, Begley con, 10-9; 44: Staunton pen, 10-12; 57: [RO ] Staunton pen, 10-15; 63: Keane drop goal, 10-18; 67: Staunton pen, 10-21; 73: Staunton try and con, 10-28; 77: Munn try, 1528.

Old Crescent: B Begley; B Leahy, W Munn, M Brodie, C Doyle; B Treacy, E Reddan; D Clohessy, M Hayes, G Evans, I Bloomer, M Bird, D O'Malley, D Bowles (capt), P Glamuzina. Replacements: G Schoeman for O'Malley (58 mins); L Browne for Hayes (66 mins); J Cullinane for Evans (68 mins).

Garryowen: D Crotty; S Mackay, J Staunton, K Hartigan, D Heaton; K Keane (capt), A Guckian; J Giltenane, P Humphreys, R Laffan, O Kelly, F Costelloe, P Neville, J O'Sullivan, D Wallace. Replacements: S Leahy for Kelly (49 mins); G Walsh for Humphreys (68 mins); D O'Connell for Hartigan (78 mins).

Referee: A Rolland (IRFU).