St Patrick’s overcame a 10 point deficit to claim a nail biting 19-17 victory over Iona and continue their unbeaten start to the 2021 AIC competition.

A week after Iona score two late tries to beat rivals Villanova, the tables turned on Saturday with St Pat’s forced to play catch up rugby on a boggy Curlew Park.

“It was a really good result and the boys showed plenty of resilience. Iona played really well and were threatening for most of the game, but fortunately our guys managed to stay in the fight and eventually things went our way,” Rugby Director Dan Nethery told Rugby News.

“Iona probably controlled the ball better in the first half. It wasn’t raining but the field was quite boggy and that made it tough.

“It turned it in to a bit of an arm wrestle because both teams were really up for it defensively.”

Despite trailing 10-0 early in the match, St Pat’s refused to go away and scored an intercept try against the run of play in the second half to put the home side within striking range.

“That gave the guys a bit of a sniff and from there they started to play with better ball control and with good field position on the back of some strong carries,” Nethery explained.

Trailing by three in the final moments, St Pat’s turned down an opportunity to kick a penalty goal that would have levelled the scores at 17-17, instead electing for an attacking scrum.

“We ended up with a scrum five metres our from Iona’s line and as the ball came back, our reserve scrum half Jacob Prlja found a gap down the left side of the scrum, which doesn’t happen too often, pinned his ears back and scored to win the match.

“Even though they were behind on the scoreboard for the majority of the game, I don’t think any of our boys ever thought that they were out of the game, which is really pleasing.

“They had faith that they could fight back and fortunately it worked out in our favour.”

Two weeks in to the seven round season, St Pat’s and Lauries are the only two remaining undefeated teams in the competition.

“Two from two is the ideal start. Looking at the results over the first two weeks, it’s going to be a very tight comp and there isn’t a single match that you can take lightly,” Nethery said.

“Every squad is really solid and I think every side has the ability to beat one another each week which is really healthy for the competition.”

St Pat’s host Padua in round three, who fell short in a 16-5 loss to an in form Lauries outfit on Saturday.

“Every Padua team is physical. They’ll have a big forward pack with some strong ball carriers and they’re typically very strong defensively.

“I think we can expect plenty of big ball runners carrying the ball well all afternoon and we’ll need to be up for that defensively to stop them.

“It’ll be another tight tussle that will test the resilience of both teams.”

In other AIC action, Marist Ashgrove got their season back on track with a 34-5 victory over Eddies and Villanova came from behind to beat St Peter’s Lutheran 21-18.