With each side carrying a win and a loss into this game, to say nothing of last season’s rivalry revisited, it’s no surprise that the Irish Times’ Gerry Thornley gave this fixture top billing for the weekend. And he was right.  It was a cracking and competitive game with both sides drawing on their wells of seasoned and newly acquired talent to deliver an excellent and sporting exhibition of club rugby. Sadly for us, the difference was discipline, but Declan Fassbender’s side showed a huge amount of grit and also flair inspiring great confidence for the coming season.

A decent crowd, including several from Lansdowne’s J2’s and 3’s brought a festival feel to the occasion. Among many helpful suggestions for this match report, one of the few printable ones was, “If Carlsberg did opening ten minutes …” and he was right too. 

Lansdowne had the dream start, absorbing a torrent of attack from the hosts right from the kick off, patiently but powerfully rebutting their advances and waiting for an opportunity to pounce. Debutante winger Todd Lawlor (number 8, Donough’s brother) showed aggression and timing beyond his years with some crunching tackles, while another welcome new signing from south of the border, Harry O’Riordan left the home attackers in no doubt that “thou shall not pass” through the centre either.  After five minutes of attack and out of ideas, the Terenure outhalf chipped over our rush defence’s heads into the grateful arms of full back Hugo McLoughlin inside his own 22. Hugo unleashed his huge left boot and placed the ball squarely back in their 22 and now we were in a perfect position to attack. They fumbled the lineout and the referee plays advantage as the ball comes back to us. It moves smoothly and swiftly to Cillian Redmond on the right wing, and he cuts back in to set up a ruck. The pendulum looks set to swing back to the open side, but no, what’s this? Scrum half James Kenny breaks through the middle with a lightning strike and draws two men before offloading elegantly to Andy Marks who saunters in under the posts for one of the easiest yet of his many tries.Steve McMahon adds the extras to make it 0 - 7 and only five minutes on the clock.

Our clinical, or “Carlsberg” command continued from the restart. Captain and starting in the second row, Jack Cooke gathered the ball in the air and set up a couple of phases which brought us over and back across the pitch, edging up to their 10 meter line. In a move straight from the master’s playbook, Kenny passes to McMahon and he pops a short ball to that man Andy Marks again running a laser line as he powers over for his second try in almost as few minutes. 0 - 12. Sweet as a cool Danish larger on a summer’s day.

However, as one sage elder Lansdowne supporter (welcome back JF!) warned in his rich Munster/Leinster brogue to the jubilant Juniors on the sideline, “Easy now lads, the game is only a pup!”

Sure enough, the specter of the true Terenure side, absent until now, must have floated out from the dressing room and repossessed the bodies of the men on the pitch as we entered the second quarter.  Slowly they regained and held on to possession and now they were showing more composure than us as the penalty count against us started to rise and rise. They clawed their way back up the pitch into our red zone with measured and varied play and eventually finished off a multi-phased attack in the corner. Their Leinster academy centre, Chris Cosgrave, converted from the corner in a chilling omen of future killer accuracy from him 7 - 12
Still pinning us inside our 22, it wasn’t long before Cosgrave’s boot was called back into service and on the stroke of half an hour he narrowed the gap to 10 - 12. And again as we entered the last five minutes of the half, yet another penalty and that golden boot did its fiendish work as we ended the half down 13 - 12.

The second half set off at a gallop with the hosts resuming their attacking position in our 22, but cooler heads prevailed now, and we worked our way out of danger without infringement. Our advance up the pitch was aided by some excellent clearances from sub scrum half, Tadhg Brophy as well as his fellow left footers, Andy Marks and Hugo McLoughlin. Ten minutes in and Terenure were resuming their attack from within their half, when a gap between their centres was spotted by nubie, Todd Lawlor and he poached the pass with a cheeky intercept, and sped down the pitch at lightening pace, finishing under the post. But even with the score at 13 - 19, not even the jolliest of Juniors (and they were all pretty jolly by now!) was under any illusions that we were home and hosed. This was a proper tussle, and it was far from over. 

Fassie and his management team started to do their magic rotating the bench. The front row was replaced with Jack Treanor, Tom Conolly and Jerry Cahir called ashore having put in a mammoth shift, and Juan Beukes came into the second row as Jack Cooke moved out to blind side flanker. As usual, Clive Ross came on and off the pitch with his usual bewildering reliability. The boost of energy helped, but though the attack was sharp and varied, our discipline continued to rob our momentum and Terenure were repeatedly allowed to pin us back in our own half. The gap would have been narrowed earlier if Cosgrave hadn’t uncharacteristically missed a penalty, but the reprieve would be short lived as he restored order a few minutes later with another long range shot on target, 16 - 19. 

As if all the penalties weren’t enough, we fluffed a couple of restarts and found another way to gift possession and territory back to the hosts. And yet again, they punished our errors cruelly. They worked their way back towards their clubhouse and in a few well executed phases they scored in the corner. Salt was then liberally sprinkled in our wounds by Cosgrave slotting over the conversion from the corner again. 23 -19

Frustrating as this was, there was still time and entering the last quarter in a game like this, anything could happen. And so it did; hope coming from an unlikely source. As we attacked their line, we conceded a penalty and what seemed like another easy exit for them beckoned. But our old friend, Terenure scrum half Alan Bennie, gave the ref so much lip, that the official reversed the penalty and Steve McMahon gratefully slotted it over, 23 – 22.  With only a point in it, we were back on the attack and throwing everything at them, but the hosts didn’t just sit back and wait for us to concede a penalty, they played some excellent ball too. Their Coup de Grace came as the game approached the end of ordinary time. From a scrum inside their half, they moved it left and their young sub centre/outhalf Casper Gabriel (remember that name!) who had electrified their back line from the moment he came on, made a break. Though well tackled, he still managed to get his arms clear to offload to centres looping around, creating a three on two overlap as they poweried into our half. Cover was there but Terenure had the numbers and they went over in the corner. 28 - 22

We were relentless in attack for the last five minutes, but their defence was just as resolute. They held out and took the points, with us taking one losing bonus point as some not insignificant consolation.

But in yet another much improved performance, our trajectory is clear. This side is very good and getting better every game.  And it will need to!

See you all at HQ on the 19th October as we take on AIL Champions, Cork Con.

Match Report - Brian Whelan