Dolphin will look back on their visit to Lakelands and wonder where it all went wrong. For the best part of the first 40 minutes, they had Terenure on the ropes, firing at the home side from all angles with a sharp display of ball control supported by some excellent team work. Terenure, still recovering from their heavy defeat last time out, found themselves in a near-constant state of defence. If the result appears convincing, then it was only the collapse of the Dolphin momentum midway through the second half that allowed Terenure to claim the honours. It took just 12 minutes for Dolphin to establish a commanding 10-0 lead. Conor Mahony popped over a penalty after three minutes before brother Cian set up the first try. His stunning burst of speed took the ball inside the Terenure 22, where Kevin Murphy tidied up for Steve Jackson to pull over the score.
Mahony converted and Terenure seemed rattled. The they could do at this stage was a Shane Cullen penalty. Apparently, the hosts were not too concerned. "We knew that once we got possession, our strength would show," explained captain Joe Kelly. The equaliser came just before the break when Girvan Dempsey ran the ball well into Dolphin territory. The subsequent scrum was collapsed by a weaker Dolphin pack, forcing referee Eddie Walsh to grant the penalty try. Peter Walsh added the points. As Kelly predicted, Terenure's strengths finally kicked in as their forwards took control. Donal Hyland, Rory Sheriff and company kept the ball within their grasp and Derek Hegarty displayed his usual competence at scrum-half. The first real break came on 54 minutes when a succession of Terenure scrums ended with Garran Sheahan driving to the line, where Pat Holden claimed the try. Another Walsh conversion and suddenly, Dolphin were the ones chasing a lead. Their best chance for a response came after Paul Hennebry was sin-binned and Kevin Murphy ran a number of quick Dolphin penalties that certainly threatened, but failed to gain any points. After that, they lost any sort of grip on the game and for the last 15 minutes, Terenure took over.
