Dooradoyle bogey laid to rest

St Mary's have played with far more elan on previous sorties to Dooradoyle, but after seven defeats at the venue this was one of those games where a win of any hue would have sufficed. Ultimately the two try to nil outcome told the story accurately. The result mattered more than the manner it was achieved.

In finally laying their Dooradoyle bogey to rest, St Mary's not only maintained their perch atop the AIB League alongside Young Munster, but gave themselves a massive dose of self-belief that they can finally win the league.

"That ends the jinx for another few years anyway," shrugged Brent Pope. The St Mary's coach wasn't exactly shouting from the rooftops as some sort of club messiah either.

"In the end defence won the game for us," Pope admitted.

"Although at one stage Garryowen were one pass away from scoring, they never really looked like getting over our line. A win is a win, and it was important for the guys psychologically."

Their three big men up front, Trevor Brennan, Victor Costello and Malcolm O'Kelly all delivered big games in this, their first St Mary's game in harness. O'Kelly augmented his usual work-rate by tormenting the Keith Wood throw, where Garryowen's smallish backrow limited the Irish hooker's options and occasionally obliged him to unload a few impudent quick throws before the lines had settled.

Brennan was a persistent thorn in the Garryowen side - and usually around their rib cages, and had a red-rag-to-a-bull effect on the home players.

He possibly led the defensive work-rate, although there were willing allies from the industrious Peter Smyth and Peter Coyle up front to Dennis Hickie out wide, while Costello complimented several trademark rumbles off the base of the scrum with a high tackle count of his own.

In the first-half Garryowen's defence was almost as offensive as St Mary's would be later. David Wallace often led the way until his day was rudely curtailed by a couple of big hits by Brennan which left him with a dead leg and potentially sidelined for at least a week.

Even when on top early on, for all their recycling, the visitors generally went sideways or inched backwards with slow ball. Yet they got the breaks to strike twice. Philip Lynch bounced off Kevin O'Riordan from Costello's blindside pick-up after Garryowen's lineout had crumbled. Then when Fergal Campion blocked Jeremy Staunton's chip from deep with his hands, Gareth Gannon gathered to steal away and scored, effectively converting Campion's knock-on into a forward pass. But referee Ronnie McDowell was unsighted, and neither of his touch judges saw the infringement either.

Garryowen, save for a brief rally inside the last quarter, when Staunton tried to have a real cut, hardly raised a gallop, and in only his second competitive game at outhalf this season, the youngster was decidedly rusty.

"It wasn't pretty," Pope conceded. "I just think we were very tense and the guys just wanted to win. The guys can look back now and say we broke the bloody jinx. How we won doesn't matter. I sense they're feeling a little anti-climactic because they wanted to go on and win in style," added Pope.

If the St Mary's players felt a little anti-climactic, then that made everyone. This was a disappointing match given the talent on display; a modern day example of crash-bangwallop rugby.

For some bizarre reasons known only to the Garryowen think-tank on the pitch, the home side effectively ensured St Mary's of victory by rejecting kickable three-pointers after 63 and 70 minutes with fanciful notions of going for tries off close-in line-outs with plenty of time left on the clock.

Given the history of this fixture and last season's semi-final - when Killian Keane's four penalties and conversion helped overturn a 17-0 deficit - this was even more extraordinary.

Keane could have provided St Mary's with unsettling memories of that day, and inspirational ones for his team-mates and supporters.

But instead of sewing seeds of doubt in their visitors' heads by getting to within a score (and in the process put themselves in line for at least a bonus point) they let St Mary's off the hook.

It quite simply beggared belief. "We'll have to improve our internal communications," smiled John Hall ruefully afterwards, preferring to leave it at that.

Yet a relieved Pope couldn't but help admitting that once Keane had sliced his penalty to touch backwards from under the posts with 10 minutes to go, "that was it, I knew we had the game then really."

With that, St Mary's heaved a collective sigh of relief and comfortably made off with the bounty.

Scoring sequence: 6 mins: Lynch try, McHugh con 0-7; 11 mins: Keane pen 3-7; 33 mins: Gannon try, McHugh con 3-14; 36 mins: McHugh pen 3-17; 53 mins: Keane pen 6-17; 82 mins: McHugh pen 620.

GARRYOWEN: D Crotty; M McNamara, K Keane, K Hartigan, K O'Riordan; J Staunton, T Tierney; N Hartigan, K Wood, C Botha, S Leahy, D Peters, P Hogan, P Neville, D Wallace. Replacements: C Varley for Wallace (45 mins), R Laffan for Botha (72 mins), R leahy for D Peters (76 mins).

ST MARY'S COLLEGE: P McKenna; D Hickie, M McHugh, G Gannon, J McWeeney; F Campion, P Lynch; P Coyle, P Smyth, D Clare, I Bloomere, M O'Kelly, T Brennan (capt), V Costello, R Doyle. Replacements: J Kilbride for Lynch (53 mins), R McIlreavy for McWeeney (81 mins).

Referee: R McDowell (Munster).