Lansdowne Squeeze Past Dolphin

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In a very close encounter Lansdowne narrowly came out on top to extend our lead at the top of the Ulster Bank League to seven points.

Lansdowne started on the front foot as Ronaldson kicked an early penalty to give Lansdowne an early lead. The lead was short lived as following a charged down kick Dolphin touched down for a converted try from James Kiernan.

The lead changed hands again when Lansdowne scored two successive tries - the first from Ross McCarron who was first to a kick in behind the Dolphin defence and the second from a long range range counter attack with Mark Roche showing some nice footwork and plenty of determination to touch down. Ronaldson converted the McCarron try but was off target for Roche's leaving Lansdowne ahead 15 - 7.

Dolphin struck back with a converted try under the sticks from Harry Fleming and added to their score with a penalty soon after from Barry Keeshan to give them the half-time lead 17 - 15.

Lansdowne however moved clear in the second half with four penalties from Ronaldson and looked to be relatively comfortable until flanker Clive Ross was sinbinned. Dolphin took advantage of the extra man and a penalty from Keeshan pegged back the scoreline to 27 - 20 in Lansdowne's favour going into the last few minutes. In the last play of the game James Cronin got over in the left corner only for Keeshan to miss the resulting conversion which would have levelled the game.

Lansdowne had won - it was ugly but we won for the second successive week on the road in Munster. Next up a Garryowen side who will be bursting a gut to level matters after we inflicted defeat on them in Dooradoyle.