St Paul's full back Niall Glacken passed up three golden opportunities to win this tense Leinster Schools' Senior Cup first round clash against Templeogue at Donnybrook yesterday. With only 12 minutes remaining, Templeogue completed a stubborn comeback when their erratic out-half, Glenn Dalton, neatly dropped a goal under pressure.

At this point they looked the more likely side to emerge into the second round. Their forwards, through the inspiration of second row Eoin Keane and number eight Kevin Kelly, had turned the tide to pin St Paul's in their half for much of the second period.

However, the scenario two minutes into the second half was much different. Glacken had sent St Paul's to the brink with a slender 3-0 lead following a 14-minute penalty, and he was involved in the build-up to scrum-half Vincent Patton's 37th-minute try, which gave his side an 8-0 lead. With constructive rugby at a minimum, eight points looked a very healthy lead. But Dalton's kick to the corner from a penalty on half-way put Templeogue into an interesting attacking position. This was the signal for Keane to attack and when he was pushed back, Templeogue moved the ball wide.

A poor pass from Dalton found Tim Holland all but closed in by the St Paul's defence, but a change of direction and no little acceleration gave him the impetus to make the line. Dalton's dropped goal led to rapturous scenes of celebration among the Templeogue players. They believed they were in the driving seat and there was enough time to turn matters around completely.

But St Paul's reacted better to the situation, and really they should have advanced to the next round. Glacken was given three penalty chances to make a difference, but he failed from 44 metres with the first; the second was a bad miss from 18 metres in front of the posts and the third rebounded into play off an upright.