Con beat rivals to cup

Cork Constitution 15

Garryowen 11

By JOHN FALLON

Cork Constitution made amends for last year’s shock final loss to Ballynahinch by carving out a hard-earned victory over arch rivals Garryowen in the AIB Cup decider at Dubarry Park.

And Con, the inaugural winners in 2006 and now the first side to win it twice, did it the hard way as they came from six points down despite being reduced to fourteen men just before th break.

Referee Alain Rolland, on the advice of touch judge David Keane, dished out a straight red card to Con lock Ian Nagle for repeated use of the fist in a ruck.

“I didn’t see the red-card incident,” said Con coach Brian Walsh.”But we were down to 14, we talked to them at the break and told them they just has to keep on playing the same way as they had been, see it through,” he said.

And so they did. Their wastefullness of ample possession in the opening half looked set to undermine tham with Richard Lane’s fine try after 15 minutes a poor reward for an opening quarter of dominance.

It was never going to be a free-flowing clash between two old rivals who slugged it out in a 6-6 league draw a week earlier, but it was a gripping battle nonetheless, especially up front where neither one gave an inch.

“I suppose we played out a dull encounter last week and one thing we wanted to do today was to come and play rugby.  We did a lot of that at the start of the game, playing good rugby but I didn’t think we got the reward for it, didn’t put the points on the board,” noted Walsh.

Garryowen hit back with two long-range penalties from scrum-half Conor Murray to edge in front and they looked like adding to their 2007 success when hooker Michael Sherry barged over the in the same incident that saw Nagle red-carded.

But Garryowen never pushed on from there and never made use of their extra man.

Instead it was Cork Con who owned the ball after the restart despite their numerical disadvantage.

They were rewarded for their patience when they recycled the ball several times before out-half Daragh Lyons spotted an opening and evaded serval tackles to dance over with twelve minutes remaining to reduce the deficit to a point.

Scott Deasy added the conversion from just to the left of the posts to put Cork Con into a lead they never lost.

Garryowen never looked like coming back and Deasy made the game safe with a penalty in the dying moments of a good tussle.

“They’re a very tight-knit group, they felt for Ian Nagle over what had happened,” added Walsh. They back each other up, a very resilient group, and we decided that if we did go down, at least we’d go down giving it everything. Thankfully it was enough for us to win the match and the cup,” said Walsh.

CORK CONSTITUTION:

Tries: Lane, Lyons

Pen: Deasy

Con: Deasy

GARRYOWEN;

Try: Sherry

Pens: Murray (2)

Cork Constitution: S Deasy; R Lane, T Gleeson, E Ryan, C Healy; D Lyons, D Williams; M Gately, R Quinn, S Archer; M O’Connell, I Nagle; B Holland, F Cogan, P O’Mahony.

Replacements: B Hayes for O’Connell, 70 mins; A Ryan for E Ryan, 70 mins; D O’Driscoll for Williams, 77 mins; G Murray for Gately, 80 mins.

Garryowen: R O’Mahony; I Hanley, C Doyle, K Hartigan, A Gaughan; W Staunton, C Murray; J Harney, M Sherry, D Lavery; F McKenna, E Mackey; P Neville, D Sherry, A Kavanagh.

Replacements: M Melbourne for Mackey, 75 mins; A McCloskey for McKenna, 70 mins; C Hartigan for Gaughan, 70 mins; L Burke for Kavanagh, 70 mins; R Brosnan for Harney, 75 mins.

Referee: A Rolland (IRFU).