Black day as Rock take shallow victory

Established senior side Blackrock College RFC came to Gordon Park this Saturday in search of victory in the J4 play-offs and took a somewhat shallow win away from the game. Clondalkin players, officials and supporters were left feeling cheated out of a game that they felt should have been in with a chance of winning.

The above statement should in no way take from the brilliance of the visiting teams players who were both clinical and physical throughout the game and the fifteen men who took to the field should take pride in their victory. Clondalkin Manager John Stapleton had opted to field the biggest set of forwards that were available for this game with the game plan being to set up good first phase ball for the Clondalkin backline. However this plan backfired when established club Blackrock opted to go uncontested in the scrum just seconds before the kick off without giving any prior notice to their opposition.

Clondalkin played up the by now infamous Gordon Park hill in the first half and defended sternly throughout conceding two tries in the first half to well executed Blackrock moves. This should have left Clondalkin in a good position going into the 2nd half given the fact that they would have the advantage of playing down the hill and would be able to put themselves into scoring positions. The aptly named Peter ‘Big Hits’ Fitz got Clondalkin off to the perfect start scoring within five minutes of the opening bringing the score to 12-5.

This should have seen the floodgates open in the Blackrock defense but for the fact that some of the Clondalkin forwards were nearing the point of exhaustion with only ten minutes gone in the 2nd half. Blackrocks tactics of spreading the ball from wing to wing, something which their impressive outhalf did with ease, meant Clondalkins tight five and back row had to compete with an eight man back row when it came to covering the ground. Clondalkin started to succumb to this expansive type of game and started missing easy tackles as the game progressed. The game eventually finished 33-5.

This game raises the questions as to the ruling regarding unconstested scrums at J4 level and the way in which teams use sportsmanship to unfairly benefit from the ability to go uncontested at the very last minute without any reprimand. Many people would consider what happened Saturday to be cheating and for a team to go out of the competition in such a way should have officials questioning their policy on how to enforce uncontested scrums at J4 level.

The question is should a team have to give notice that they plan not to contest scrums before showing up to a match???

Added by Murts March 23, 2009 (4:41PM)

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