Corinthians 45 Dolphin 17
Galway Corinthians continued to put pressure on leaders Instonians at the top of Division 2B of the Energia League with a comprehensive win over Dolphin played on Friday night at Musgrave Park.
Not only was it impressive from the start, it also temporarily put them top of the table until Instonians overcame Sligo 52-19 on Saturday afternoon.
With just four games played in the Division, Corinthians lie four points behind in second with their next game at home to Belfast Harlequins on Saturday while Instonians will travel to Wanderers who beat Dungannon last weekend and currently are third. Corinthians hit hard and hit early.
The opening try followed a line out that was collected and fed out the line. With possession in hand, scrum half Matthew Devine got through the cover and with the pack in support, fed to centre Harry Rogers to touch down.
The second again came from a Max Holmes lineout with Rory Glynn collecting and from the driving maul, Corinthians powered over with Holmes at the bottom of the pile with the ball and the try.
Corinthians were 19-0 up and flying with try number three possibly a nomination for try of the season. A Dolphin kick off was collected and fed to Finn McNulty who ran from inside his own ten metre line and shipped two tackles to score what was simply a brilliant try for the visitors.
Sean Naughton, who had nailed the first two conversions, was unlucky not to see the third go over but at this stage, Corinthians were now looking very good. Incredibly, Dolphin were handed a lifeline with the referee awarding them a penalty try even though it looked as if nothing illegal had happened.
A penalty after that reduced the deficit to ten points at half time but Corinthians were stung and they pushed on scoring the bonus point with a fine try by Mark Boyle with a special mention for Rory Glynn who made the line break following the offload from Boyle and nearly got over himself only to be stopped inches from the line.
The ball recycled to the number eight who went over for the score. There would be three further tries for Corinthians before the end of the game. Finn McNulty took advantage of a mix-up in the Dolphin defence following an up and under from Sean Naughton that caused confusion and in the resulting melee on the 4G surface that caused the ball to bounce awkwardly, good pressure and support left the winger with an easy touchdown.
The next, from Max Holmes, was from an old school lineout and drive with the hooker again taking the ball and going over and the final try of the evening for Corinthians came from a moment of magic inside their own 22 with Mark Boyle capping off a Man of the Match performance by going through a gap that didn’t seem to exist and running the guts of 50 metres before passing to Matthew Devine who in turn found Harry Rogers on his shoulder and the centre finished the move going under the posts.
Dolphin would get another try near the end but it would be a mere consolation against a dominant Corinthians who were brilliant from beginning to end.
Corinthians: S Fox, T Waters, H Rogers, J Devine, F McNulty, S Naughton, M Devine. P Fahy, M Holmes, F Barrett, R Glynn, R Janse Van Rensburg, M Garcia, M Flynn, M Boyle (Capt ). Replacements: A Nash, R Dufficy, P Flannery, J Tierney, C Treacy.
