Old Crescent pulled off the biggest shock of the league season so far when they defeated leaders Ballymena by 9-6 at Rosbrien on Saturday. What had looked like being a miserable season for the Limerick club after four successive defeats, two of them by extremely wide margins, was turned on its head by a superb performance which yielded a fully merited success.
"This was all about heart and spirit," said Old Crescent coach Jed O'Dwyer. "The team left all their previous form behind and also Ballymena paid dearly for their over-confidence. I have never seen an Old Crescent team to play with such spirit and to put in so many tackles".
Ballymena travelled to Limerick with five wins to their credit against four losses for Old Crescent and it was understandable that an air of complacency should have crept into the visitors' camp. They were on top territorially in a wind-assisted first half but the Old Crescent defence was superb and restricted the visitors to penalty goals by former international Derek McAleese in the 10th and 21st minutes.
Ballymena must have sensed that things were going wrong when they failed to capitalise on five successive scrums close to the Crescent line and also when winger Andy Park had what appeared to be a certain try dashed from his grasp by Paul McDonagh. A shock result became more and more likely as Crescent took control in the second half and drew level through a Brian Begley penalty in the 42nd minute followed five minutes later by a drop goal by Leo Doyle.
Try as they might Ballymena could make no in-roads against the outstanding Crescent defence in which centres Doyle and Anthony O'Dwyer and full back Begley were magnificent. Crescent's day was complete in the 77th minute when Begley gained possession on the Ballymena 22 and dropped the match-winning goal.
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