Shannon made to battle

Buccaneers made Shannon fight every inch of the way to escape with a share of the spoils from Saturday's drab game at Thomond Park.

Buccaneers took the lead with a penalty by Justin Meagher after 10 minutes while for the second successive week winger Tom Cregan contributed all of Shannon's points.

Cregan went over for a well-taken try on 13 minutes and although he missed the conversion, he stretched his side's lead with a penalty after 24 minutes. But Buccaneers had a second penalty by Meagher and then Tim Allnutt skipped over for a try that put them 11-8 in front at the interval.

The only score in the second half was a penalty by Cregan in the 56th minute. But the draw sees Shannon drop off the top of the table although they have almost assured themselves of a home draw in the semi-finals.

SHANNON: J Lacey; T Cregan, M Lawler, A Thompson, F O'Loughlin; N McNamara, D Hegarty; M Horan, J Blaney, J Hayes, B Buckley, M Galwey, T Hayes, C McMahon, D Quinlan. Replacements: J. Davis for Thompson (43 mins); G Noonan for T Hayes (78).

BUCCANEERS: N O'Hara; M Devine, D Yapp, T Allnutt, T Robinson; J Meagher, C Keane; R McCormack, J McVeigh, M Cahill, N Smullen, G Schoeman, I Dillon, E Brennan, C Rigney. Replacements: G Kenny for Dillon (73).

Referee: D McHugh (Munster).