AIB ALL-IRELAND LEAGUE FINAL/Shannon 19 Clontarf 19 (after extra time; Shannon win for scoring first try):AN HOUR after the full-time whistle 12-day-old Colin McNamara, son of the club's PRO, was being wheeled around the inner sanctum of Thomond Park dressed from head to toe in Shannon's colours. He hasn't opened his eyes yet but no doubt in due course he'll learn about this and other conquests. Shannon, remarkable Shannon, had done just enough again.
In winning their ninth AIB League title - only one shy of the rest of the country put together and their 30th of 31 senior finals over the last 20 years - Shannon's new, younger model (average age 25) showed that doing whatever it takes to win trophies is simply in their DNA.
However, of all their final "defeats", this will have hurt Clontarf the most, not least because they didn't actually lose. After 20 scoreless minutes of extra time, and each side having scored two tries, Shannon were deemed the winners by dint of scoring the first try.
The excellent Alain Rolland, having never refereed an extra-time game in his career, has suddenly overseen two in succession, and they are sure to heighten the debate about what the sport has to do to resolve tied games at the end of extra time.
Last Saturday's resolution at least saved us the nonsense of last Sunday week's penalty shoot-out between Leicester and Cardiff at the Millennium Stadium but, while preferable, it was still a profoundly arbitrary and unsatisfactory way of resolving a truly fantastic final.
Quite why they couldn't have met again next Saturday at, say, the RDS, is a puzzling one. It would have been eminently fairer, not least because the IRFU had decreed that Clontarf should effectively play this final away at Thomond Park. Ironically, whereas the Shannon coach, Geoff Moylan, and his staff didn't know the rules until the end of 80 minutes, his counterpart Andy Wood had them written out in the pocket of his tracksuit top on arrival at the ground.
In any event, the onus was on Clontarf to score and win the match in extra time, and even then they couldn't have come closer. Patiently working their way into Shannon territory midway through the second period, they eschewed a drop-goal chance and went wide, where replacement Max Rantz McDonald couldn't quite hold onto the ball as he reached out, one-handed, over the line.
Shannon, to their credit, tried to win it as the game moved into overtime in extra time when working the ball to outhalf Tadgh Bennett for an attempted drop goal which was charged down. It was a ballsy risk by Shannon, who could just as easily have kept picking and going.
"I didn't take that risk," smiled captain David Quinlan, suggesting there might have been a bit of a post-mortem if Clontarf had made anything of their two subsequent bouts of attacks.
But Shannon's defence had the bit between their teeth, epitomised by their heavy-tackling backrow in which Donnacha Ryan excelled. He and Clontarf's muscular South African Heinrich Stride seemed almost to seek each other out here, there and everywhere.
It had been like that for much of the regulation 80 minutes as well, when the exchanges ebbed and flowed continually. Until the game tightened up in the final quarter, Shannon had been much the more clinical side, converting every visit into the Clontarf 22 into points with a snappy drop goal and penalty by Bennett, and two sharply-taken tries by fullback David O'Donovan, the first a trademark perfect line onto Bennett's deft inside pass off a well-worked dummy switch.
Clontarf had more of the game and played more of the rugby, but occasionally were guilty of over-anxiousness in their running and coming too flat onto the ball.
They had many of the game's stand-out performers, especially man-of-the-match Paul O'Donohoe, who marshalled his troops and probed superbly. His footballing skill and dangerous broken-field running also showed why Michael Cheika has experimented with him at outhalf in those dastardly A games.
Whereas Shannon took less risks, attacked in narrower channels and usually went to the air from the back - we hardly saw Stephen Kelly on the ball accept to use his big left boot - the Clontarf fullback Phil Howard displayed his vision and handling skills with a much more daring approach in tandem with his wingers Niall O'Brien and Michael Keating.
Stride, Ben Reilly and co were also full of running, the former finishing off the try of the match in quick riposte to O'Donovan's first after a counter-attack and offload by Howard for Keating to release Darragh O'Shea. He cleverly cut back inside and beat his man to find Martin Dufficy on the outside, the outhalf executing a wondrous pass inside for Stride to stride over from 10 metres out.
Rectifying a troubled lineout and superior in the scrum, Clontarf looked to be on a winning course when O'Donohoe put Simon Crawford through after strong running by Breiffne O'Donnell, Howard and Stride, but a surging run by Shannon's highly-promising 21-year-old Irish sevens' openside Eoghan Grace enabled Bennett to draw the sides level for a fourth time nearing the hour. Surprisingly, that would be the last of the scoring, if not the drama.
Scoring sequence: 1 min: Bennett drop goal 3-0; 15: O'Shea pen 3-3; 18: Bennett pen 6-3; 21: O'Shea pen 6-6; 23: O'Donovan try 11-6; Stride try 11-11; 32: O'Donovan try 16-11; (half-time 16-11); 47: O'Shea pen 16-14; 50: Crawford con 16-19; 57: Bennett pen 19-19.
SHANNON: D O'Donovan; R Mullane, F Mc Loughlin, J Clogan, S Kelly; T Bennett, F Mc Namara; K O'Neill, M Essex, K Griffin, P O'Brien, F Walsh, D Ryan, E Grace, D Quinlan (capt). Replacements: J Cronin, M O'Driscoll, P Loughnane, J O'Connor, L Hogan, E Mc Loughlin, F O'Loughlin.
CLONTARF: P Howard; M Keating, D O'Shea (capt), B O'Donnell, N O'Brien; M Dufficy, P O'Donohue; K Dorian, A Dundon, N Treston, S Crawford, B Reilly, H Stride, N Carson, M Garvey. Replacements: A Clarke, S Treacy, J Duffy, B Focus, M R McDonald, J Wickham, P O Brien.
Referee: A Rolland (IRFU).
