Lansdowne expose Shannon's frailties

Early days yet, as they say, and one win doesn't guarantee a good winter. Nevertheless, at a ghostly Lansdowne Road on Saturday, Lansdowne's second consecutive AIB League home win over Shannon carried far more optimistic messages for the home side than the 18-14 win two years ago and, significantly, more haunting signs for the one-time kingpins of the domestic game.

Lansdowne's last win had been founded primarily on a strategy of kicking the ball in behind Shannon, applying pressure, making their tackles and forcing mistakes to kick their 18 points.

Saturday's win was a more emphatic victory, founded on a far more rounded strategy. "The gameplan worked, which was to attack them with wide targets and then if they (Shannon) spread wide that was the moment to go back through the pack," Lansdowne coach Michael Cosgrave said.

Rarely has Shannon been pierced so often up the middle, such as with the 40 metre pick and go drive with Gabriel Fulcher to the fore in the build-up to the Barry Everitt penalty which gave Lansdowne their 11-3 interval lead.

Generally, Lansdowne's defence and tackling were palpably superior, as was their continuity, especially up front. By comparison, despite snatches of good work from Anthony Foley, Mick Galwey, Marcus Horan and co, Shannon committed too many turnovers in contact to apply the same continuity.

Lansdowne's international props were up for this game in a big way, and their scrum was impressive, while hooker Cormac Egan was a persistent thorn in the Shannon side with his work on the ground, even if some of it was illegal.

Lansdowne's reshuffled back row also met fire with fire, their former Irish under-21 back-rower Aidan McCullen, back after a year studying at Dax, excellent. Cosgrave touted him in a big way afterwards, expressing his puzzlement as to why McCullen hadn't been more involved in the Leinster set-up.

"He has all three aspects which you're looking for in a back row forward; he's fast, he's a strong big hitter, and he has the hands and skills, whereas unfortunately all of the Leinster back-rowers have only two out of three at most."

As if to prove the point, McCullen played at open side on the tail of the line-out, and at number eight or the left of the back row at alternate put-ins. Most encouraging of all perhaps, was the greater control provided at half-back, especially from Barry Everitt given his Leinster travails this season. Outside of them, more predictably, Marcus Dillon remains one of the league's most lethal finishers while Shane Horgan was the classiest back on display, capping his day's work when carving through at the death from 40 metres out.

He linked up deftly on occasions with their Australian debutante full back Gus Hamilton, a real find. Something of a chance signing through a Queensland University contact with Everitt some years ago, Hamilton (29) is ostensibly a centre, who hadn't played at full back for nine years, and was, according to Cosgrave, "a balls' call" after Gordon D'Arcy's morning withdrawal.

Shannon did have their moments, beginning well into the wind and deservedly winning the first quarter 3-0 after taking five successive Lansdowne throws. The match turned to a large degree on a couple of contentious decisions by referee Bertie Smith, the first when sin-binnning John O'Neill after classic inside-out defending to cut off a two-man overlap.

Co-coach Rhys Ellison contended that O'Neill had in effect been sin-binned for good play, and he seemed to have a point, although Cosgrave maintained O'Neill had been blatantly offside and he would have had no qualms with the decision had it been one of his players.

To compound Shannon's sense of injustice, with O'Neill off Lansdowne went ahead with a try in that corner; again viewpoints differing dramatically as to whether the ball had gone forward from Horgan when tackled by Eddie Halvey before Everitt touched down the loose ball.

However, as Pat Murray conceded, Shannon twice came back to within a score of their hosts, but couldn't get out of jail. In times past they would have, but this game exposed all the fears about their absent backs. Conor Burke didn't keep their pack going forward as Jim Galvin used to do (or as Ronan O'Gara does with Munster), while four missed kicks underlined the absence of the departed Andrew Thompson. Almost as worrying, Ellison's own absence left the midfield significantly lightweight in defence.

Most of all though, their pack's flat performance underlined the difficulties they will have with Munster's Euro run. Lansdowne were never swayed from continuing to play their style of rugby, and rode out both second-half scares by regaining the initiative. This was the type of game Shannon would have pilfered in their four-in-a-row years, but, whisper it quietly, they seem to have lost their mystique.

Scoring sequence: 6 mins: Burke penalty 0-3; 21: Everitt penalty 3-3; 30: Everitt try 8-3; 36: Everitt penalty 11-3; 45: Burke penalty 11-6; 59: Burke penalty 11-9; 67: Dillon try, Everitt conversion 18-9; 75: Galwey try 18-14; 79: Horgan try, Everitt conversion 25-14.

Lansdowne: G Hamilton; M Dillon, R Niland, A O'Neill; B Everitt, D O'Mahony (capt); R Corrigan, C Egan, A McKeen, G Fulcher, B Cusack, A McCullen, C McEntee, S Rooney.

Shannon: Jason Hayes; J O'Neill, N McNamara, C McMahon, J Lacey; C Burke, P Stringer; M Horan, M McDermott, John Hayes, M Galwey (capt), J Langford, A Quinlan, A Foley, E Halvey. Replacements: D Quinlan for A Quinlan (60 mins).

Referee: B Smith (Munster).