Old Crescent got their first real taste of life in the First Division at Thomond Park last night. The first AIB League game to be held under floodlights at the famous Limerick venue turned into something of a debacle from Crescent's point of view.

Financially they may have done well, but on the pitch they got a lesson in the basics from a rampant Shannon side who showed absolutely no mercy to their Limerick opponents.

The champions breezed in for seven tries and could even afford the luxury of taking it easy for the middle 40 minutes of the game. At all other times, however, there was a ruthless streak which ran through this Shannon side.

In attack they had Old Crescent reeling and, defensively, they gave absolutely nothing away. Two tries inside the opening four minutes left old Crescent in a state of shock but worse was to follow when Shannon rattled up a 28-point lead after just 16 minutes.

There was clearly no way back for newly-promoted Crescent after that and, while they battled on gamely, the floodgates were bound to open as Shannon continued to press.

After scoring three second half tries, New Zealand centre Rhys Ellison took Shannon to the 50-point mark with a superbly struck long range penalty goal.

UCC's Colin Healy was left cursing his luck when an injury-time conversion attempt agonisingly came back off the crossbar to deny UCC a dramatic win over Sunday's Well in the League second division last night. The students had to settle for a 10-10 draw.