Energia All-Ireland League Rewind: Lansdowne v Clontarf

Lansdowne v Clontarf

Energia AIL Div1a Round 12

Friday 14th February, 2020

This Round 12 Energia AIL Div1a game from early February saw two Dublin heavy weights going head-to-head to try to make up ground on runaway league leaders Cork Constitution, Garryowen and UCD who were comfortably occupying the top three play-off spots.

2017/18 winners Lansdowne opened their season with a comprehensive victory over UCD but then lost their next five league games.  They arrested this uncharacteristic run of form with five straight victories, a run that commenced with an away win at Castle Ave.  Tarf were also experiencing a mixed season but had strung some decent wins together against Dublin University and Ballynahinch ahead of this fixture.

This game between 4^th (Clontarf) and 5^th (Lansdowne) in the league table could define the trajectory of their respective seasons – one chasing play-off glory and the other hoping not to get dragged into a relegation dogfight.

What resulted was a classic Energia AIL encounter packed full of drama with the score changing hands on seven occasions and the match winner coming in the 82^nd minute.

LANSDOWNE 29 CLONTARF 28, Aviva Stadium back pitch
Scorers: Lansdowne: Tries: Darragh Murphy, James Reynolds; Cons: Craig Ronaldson 2; Pens: Craig Ronaldson 5
Clontarf: Tries: Sean Kearns, Tom Byrne, Matt D’Arcy; Cons: Sean Kearns 2; Pens: Sean Kearns 3

LANSDOWNE: Tim Foley; Cillian Redmond, Mark Roche, Conall Doherty, James Reynolds; Craig Ronaldson, James Kenny; Martin Mulhall, Dan Sheehan, Adam Boland, Mark Flanagan, Jack Dwan (capt), Jack O’Sullivan, Mark Boyle, Darragh Murphy.

Replacements: Conor Gleeson, Shane Moynihan, Cian O’Dwyer, Tim Murphy, Tom Roche.

CLONTARF: Jack Power; Sean Kearns, Michael Brown, Matt D’Arcy, Michael Courtney; Conor Kelly, Hugh O’Sullivan; Ivan Soroka, Dylan Donnellan, Royce Burke-Flynn, Cormac Daly, Ben Reilly, Tom Ryan, Tom Byrne, Michael Noone (capt).

Replacements: Tadgh McElroy, JP Phelan, Tony Ryan, Andrew Feeney, Gearoid Lyons.