LANSDOWNE, who have been labouring under the burden of diminishing title aspirations of late, put a number of indifferent performances behind them to mark their last home game of the season with a six-try rout of Blackrock at Lansdowne Road on Saturday.

The home side made their intentions clear from the off and when full back Richard Governey dived over in the right corner in the first minute it was clear which side was up for the match.

Left wing Robert Becker, who scored a try on his senior debut last week, crossed over for a second try just five minutes later and Blackrock, who were playing with a strong wind at their backs, looked ripe for plucking.

A depleted, and it must be said bedraggled Blackrock, never recovered from that opening salvo and struggled to create any scoring opportunities. David Lynagh got them off the mark with a penalty on 12 minutes, but Eric Elwood replied in kind on 28 minutes.

While the Ireland international out-half is still a little off the pace following his return from injury last week, his tactical kicking was generally of a high standard. With the O'Connor brothers, Paul and Stephen, dominating the lineouts for Lansdowne, Blackrock found themselves starved of possession in the first half.

The home side stretched their lead further in the 31st minute when scrum-half David O'Mahony smuggled the ball over from the back of a ruck. Although Lynagh licked a second penalty, Lansdowne held a commanding 18-6 lead at half-time.

Not surprisingly, Lansdowne coach Donal Spring was well pleased with that first half performance. "Morale had been down for the last couple of weeks and this caused concentration lapses, with players making mistakes they would not normally be making. We decided to get back to basics today and it paid off. We were very good in the first half but over-elaborated in the second half and turned over too many balls."

He really meant the last half hour, as Lansdowne started the second half as they had the first. Elwood kicked a penalty after just two minutes, before Marcus Dillon came in off the right wing to split the Blackrock defence and skip around the cover to score the try of the day.

A few minutes later O'Mahony took a quick tap penalty five metres out, and although the scrum-half was held up on this occasion he got the ball away to flanker Stephen Rooney who crashed over. Elwood added the conversion and Lansdowne led 35-6 with 29 minutes to play.

Dillon went on to grab a second try for Lansdowne while Aidan Guinan and Nicky Assaf scored consolation tries for Blackrock.

Where did it go wrong for Lansdowne this season? Spring didn't hesitate when he singled out the Ballymena match. "Young Munster was our best performance of the season. Ballymena a week later was our worst. We weren't helped by injuries to players on representative duty but to win the league you need depth. You could say we were a bit light in that area this year," he said.

Lansdowne lost to Ballymena by a point, and to Garryowen by three. "Both were there for the taking. In both games we had enough ball to win, but we weren't clinical enough to put teams away and to use the ball."

While he said a Dublin team will have to do it some time he was effusive in his praise for three times champions Shannon. "They have strength in depth, they have the capacity for winning tight matches even when not at their best and they have good experienced heads in key positions. They deserve it and full credit to them."