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Strabane II 8 - 15 Ballymena VI | Mon 23rd Jan 2006 | | Team:- Les, Gary S, McSparron, AJ, David C, Gordy, JK, Nigel F, Timmy, Paddy, Gareth C, David M, David W, Andy B, Gilsey.
Subs:- McCarter, Lee, Gary B, Stuart.
Well we had high hopes again this week for a quality match with an unkown opposition team. They hit the pitch and they where a big team. The scrum was much heavier than our own and this was evident from the first encounter where they drove us back the full 1.5 metres. This more or less set the tone for the rest of the match in scrums anyway. We had gordy back for the line outs so they where firing well with him usually being able to collect from the throw and good support from the rest of the pack meant we did have some good platforms to play from. the first half was a very heavily contested encounter with both teams more or less evenly matched. The Ballymena men were using the rolling maul well and it was their best weapon against a very sturdy Strabane defense with them hitting our line reapeatedly only to get drove back. It was from one of these rolling mauls that ballymena created a good overlap on the left wing and i was last man only to get dragged over the try line still holding onto their flanker! The conversion was missed.
An invigorated strabane then marched straight back up the field with good linked play from both forwards and backs. This gave gilsey a good run and he was able to put the ball out through the back line using all the men. David W drew his man lovely and threw an overhead pass without looking to Nigel who used his pace to get over the line. Gary missed the conversion but we had our tails up. Strabane now played amazingly with every one trying hard. Another back line move saw gilsey making another run up the left wing this time and threw me a pass which i amazingly caught and I should have got a score however instead of running for the corner flag I straightened up and there full back managed to tap tackle me and i went down hard spilling the ball. We played hard again in their 22 and got a penalty which gary managed to slot over the posts. Some more vigorous defending meant the half ended up 8-5 to the strabane men.
AJ was replaced by Lee at half time and other than that things didnt change much. Strabane took the foot off the gas early on in the second half with what can only be described as the sofest try this season being given to the Ballymena men. Gilsey went to outhalf for a bit but nobody told timmy who threw the ball from the back of the scrum to paddy. The pass didnt quite reach him but he managed to somehow get it to Gilsey who then threw another poor pass and the ball was fumbled on the line only for the Ballymena flanker to rush in and get it touched down. The conversion was scored. This put a bit of a dampener on things with that soft score meaning we where 4 points behind. We tried very hard with some heavy tackles going in particularly from the 2 centres. They have gelled well together and are making great breaking runs. Andy Brown also made his presence felt with some good atacking runs and kicks down the line. The sheer physical brutality of the game was taking it out of nigel as hes not used to playing to such a high standard and he had to go off injured. This put McCarter into hook with gary going to flanker. We were trying very hard again but Ballymena got a penalty which the outhalf managed to slot over the posts. By now we where all tired and the ballymena attack was getting easy to read. TYhe forwards would try to push wheras the only pacey back they had was the outhalf. Strabane managed to defend well and stopped a few scores but we just couldnt get that cutting edge attack to convert the pressure to points. The match ended 8-15 to the ballymena men but they had to fight hard for it and we gave them a great mathc. Bring on the rainey boys! |
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