THIS WAS one of those days that promised the spectator nothing and delivered to them only slightly more. A game robbed of significance by the absence of a trapdoor to division two and played out between sides that are certain to look fairly different by the time next year's league kicks off produced little to impress the neutral, but enough to leave the small band of Old Wesley supporters smiling as they made the short journey home.

Having only really had the better of the first hour thanks to Niall Farren's greater accuracy with his boot than the home, side's Gerry Harvey, Wesley made the most of a late defensive collapse by a depleted Blackrock side to help themselves to a first league win over their rivals and their largest AIL division one victory to date.

The late flurry of tries for the visitors, however, put a favourable gloss on a game. Although Blackrock never led, they never seemed totally out of it, until Harvey's kicking replacement Shane Hunt failed to pull things back to 9-12 before Farren picked up his fifth penalty of the day, which was quickly followed by the first try.

The hosts had in fact enjoyed at least as much possession as their counterparts in the opening period and they seemed to benefit from more than one dubious penalty decision by referee Graeme Crothers at the line-outs.

Penalties aside, their second row of Mick O'Neill and Hubie Kos won more than their share of ball, but their passing movements repeatedly broke down at centre and it was full-back Rory Kearns who salvaged their only points of the first half with a well snatched dropped goal after just such a fumble.

"When you get into the attack zone you have to come away with threes at least, but we didn't do that and we paid the price," said Blackrock coach Tony Smeeth afterwards, as he reflected on four missed penalty kicks by Harvey.

Hunt did hint that things might improve when he kicked one six minutes after the restart, but thereafter he too lost his way while his team, despite a solid performance by Kearns, began to find themselves increasingly entrenched deep in their own territory.

With only six points them, Alain Rolland almost changed the nature of the match in the 55th minute with a long blind side run for the line from a scrum but, having initially allowed him past, Andy Johnston recovered well to track his man, and brought him down 15 metres short of the line. After that the pressure started to mount for the Blackrock defence.

Stuart Wilson was the first to go over for the visitors after Kearns's clearance was blocked and Donal Connolly fluffed the attempt to recover possession, but it was Johnston who finished it with two tries in at the corner-flag from set pieces in the last three minutes, by which time the locals had clearly called it a day. "Delighted that we finally put a team away when we had the chance," was Mark Anscome's verdict on his side's performance.