Dolphin 17 Old Belvedere 16
Despite losing further players through injury during the week, Dolphin started well while playing against a strong breeze. In the 4th minute, 2nd row Chris Rowe come through a ruck with nobody in front of him, he made plenty of ground (at least 100m in his opinon) offloaded to Kevin Lynch who found Andy O’Driscoll on the inside and Keeshan converted O’Driscoll’s try.
Using the wind well, the visitors kicked penalties in the 12th, 18th and 32 minutes to go into what turned out to be a short lived lead of 9-7. Four minutes to half time Dolphin were awarded a penalty, kicked to the corner and from the lineout John Quill scored his 4th try of the campaign.
Three minute into the 2nd half, Ryan Murphy increased the lead to 17-9 with a try from a scrum near the line. Despite attacks from both sides there was no score for the next 30 minutes. With seven minutes to go Dolphin, from a penalty, did not take an easy three points on offer but went for the corner. This time it did not come off and Old Belvedere came back at Dolphin and finally broke the defence and narrowed the gap to one point 17-16. Dolphin held out for victory and for Old Belvedere it was yet another bonus point, making it nine bonus points from 12 losses.